What is the real name of the graffiti artist known as 'Dondi'?

What is the real name of the graffiti artist known as “Dondi”? The answer is Donald Joseph White.

Dondi was the professional name of Donald Joseph White, an influential New York graffiti artist associated with the city’s subway-writing era. Born in Brooklyn, he began tagging in the 1970s and eventually became known for highly structured lettering, readable wildstyle, and characters that influenced generations of graffiti writers.

White joined The Odd Partners, or TOP, in 1977 and founded the Crazy Inside Artists, or CIA, in 1978. His best-known achievement is Children of the Grave, a series of three complete subway-car paintings made between 1978 and 1980. Photographer Martha Cooper documented the final piece, helping preserve its place in graffiti history.

Dondi is sometimes grouped with Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Lee Quiñones because they all helped move New York’s street-based art into galleries and museums. They were collaborators or contemporaries, not alternate names for Dondi. White later exhibited internationally and became the first graffiti artist to have solo exhibitions in both the Netherlands and Germany. He died in 1998.