Dondi White

Donald Joseph White, who wrote as DONDI, was born in Brooklyn on 7 April 1961, the youngest of five brothers in an Italian-American and African-American family, and died in 1998. He began writing in the mid-1970s and became, within a few years, the writer other writers watched. His work on the New York subway was distinguished by an exactness rare in the form: letters cleanly resolved, colour transitions controlled, whole cars executed with the finish of studio work under conditions that allowed for none.

The style he named Dondism combined what he called high-tech letters with imagery drawn from the world he was painting in. His 1980 whole car Children of the Grave, photographed by Martha Cooper, is among the most reproduced images in the history of the form. He was a member of CIA and TOP and, unusually, was respected across crews and boroughs at a moment when the culture was intensely territorial.

He moved to canvas in 1980 and to Europe soon after, exhibiting with the Yaki Kornblit Gallery in Amsterdam in 1983 and 1984 and at the Fun Gallery in New York in 1982 and 1983. The paintings keep the discipline of the trains — the same precision of edge and interval — while opening into abstraction, with letters broken down into components and recomposed as structure. He continued to paint until shortly before his death at thirty-seven.

Dondi appeared in the 1983 documentary Style Wars and travelled with the New York City Rap Tour, which carried hip-hop to Europe in 1982. His work was included in New York Graffiti at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 1983, and has since been shown in Graffiti — New York 80's at Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont in Paris in 2012 and in the retrospective Dondism at Ghost Galerie in Marseille in 2018.

His paintings are held in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Groninger Museum, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, the Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, the Heidelberger Kunstverein and the Musée National des Monuments Français — an institutional record matched by very few writers of his generation, and assembled almost entirely during his lifetime.

ARTIST CV

Born 1961, Brooklyn, New York, NY, USA

Died 1998, New York, NY, USA

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2018 Dondism, Ghost Galerie, Marseille, France

1999 The Dondi White Memorial Exhibition, Exhibit 1A Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1992 The Empire Show, Empire Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1987 Matter of Facts, 56 Bleecker Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1984 Yaki Kornblit Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands

1983 Yaki Kornblit Gallery, Amsterdam, Netherlands

1983 Fun Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1983 Gallery Art in Progress, Düsseldorf, Germany

1983 51X Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1982 Fun Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1982 The Ugly Man, Six Gallery, New York, NY, USA

Selected Group Exhibitions

2022 New York Street Style: création des années 80, Ghost Galerie, Paris, France

2022 Accrochage saisonnier, Ghost Galerie, Paris, France

2021 Nos Fantômes, Ghost Galerie, Paris, France

2013 Textures: The Written Word in Contemporary Art, ACA Galleries, New York, NY, USA

2012 Graffiti — New York 80’s, Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris, France

2010 Graffiti NYC — Artists of the Third Rail, Benrimon Contemporary, New York, NY, USA

2006 No Sleep ’till Brooklyn: A powerHouse Hip Hop Retrospective, The powerHouse Arena, Brooklyn, NY, USA

1993 Celebrating 15 Years Above Ground, Space Time Light Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1992 Industry, Detroit, MI, USA

1988 Real Paint, Procter Art Center, New York, NY, USA

1987 Remembrances, Sfax Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1987 56 Bleecker Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1985 Gallozzi LaPlaca Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1985 Ronald Feldman Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1984 Artist T-Shirts, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA

1984 Artists from New York in Monte-Carlo, Speerstra Gallery, Monte Carlo, Monaco

1984 Classical American Graffiti Writers and High Graffiti Artists, Galerie Thomas, Munich, Germany

1983 121 Art Gallery, Antwerp, Belgium

1983 Gallery Piranesi, Zurich, Switzerland

1983 Intoxication, Monique Knowlton Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1983 Seibu Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1982 Burners, Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

1982 University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

1982 51X Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1982 Nature Morte Gallery, New York, NY, USA

1981 Beyond Words, Mudd Club, New York, NY, USA

1981 The Kitchen, New York, NY, USA

1981 Club 57, New York, NY, USA

Museum and Institutional Exhibitions

2013 Graffiti Art, Museum Tongerlohuys, Roosendaal, Netherlands

2012 Art & Toys — Collection Selim Varol, me Collectors Room, Berlin, Germany

2008 Graffiti Stories: l’art modeste sous les bombes, Musée Paul Valéry with the Musée International des Arts Modestes, Sète, France

2007 Le graffiti historique, Musée Paul Valéry, Sète, France

2005 Frozen Fire, Museum Tongerlohuys, Roosendaal, Netherlands

1992 New York Graffiti Art: Coming from the Subway, Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands

1991 Graffiti Art: artistes américains et français 1981–1991, Musée national des Monuments français, Paris, France

1987 Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Germany

1987 Museum Helmond, Helmond, Netherlands

1987 Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, Germany

1986 Graffiti, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren, Germany

1985 New York Graffiti, Gemeentemuseum Helmond, Helmond, Netherlands

1984 Arte di Frontiera: New York Graffiti, Galleria d’Arte Moderna di Bologna, Bologna, Italy

1984 Graffiti, Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands

1983 New York Graffiti, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

1981 New York/New Wave, P.S.1, Long Island City, NY, USA

Biennials, Triennials and Art Fairs

1984 Zurich Art Fair, Zurich, Switzerland

1984 Cologne International Art Fair, Cologne, Germany

Selected Public Commissions and Projects

1982 New York City Rap Tour, With Rammellzee, Futura 2000 and Phase 2; Paris, Lyon, Metz, Belfort, Mulhouse and Strasbourg, France; London, United Kingdom; and Los Angeles, CA, USA

1980 Founder, Esses Studio, New York, NY, USA

Selected Public and Institutional Collections

Groninger Museum, Groningen, Netherlands

Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, Germany

Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren, Germany

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Museum der Stadt Ratingen, Ratingen, Germany

Museum Helmond, Helmond, Netherlands

Musée national des Monuments français, Paris, France

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands