DONDI

Art Brokerage: Dondi American Artist: b. 1961-1998. Dondi was an American graffiti artist best known for his dynamic lettering and stick figures characterized by brilliant energy and color. Born Donald Joseph White in 1961 in New York, he began his career in the early 1970s as part of the group of graffiti artists known as The Odd Partners, who worked primarily on the M, J, and L subway lines during the 1970s. In 1977, Dondi formed his own group, known as CIA, and established his reputation as one of the most stylistically innovative and influential graffiti artists of his generation. In the early 1980s, Dondi began to work on canvas, and became associated with a group of legendary artists working in the East Village, including Futura, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. His fine art works reiterated the lettering and symbolic icons that were his signature marks on the streets, while his later work from the 1990s included collages that juxtaposed pencil drawings with blueprints of the subway system. The artist passed away in 1998 at the age of 37, and his work has been exhibited at the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, the Fun Gallery in New York, and the Musée des Monuments Français in Paris, among other institutions. Listings wanted.