Dondi White: Style Master General: The

Nearly 20 years after the art world began to consider graffiti a contender, one of its most acclaimed progenitors from the '70s and '80s is honored in a retrospective called DONDI Style Master General: The Life and Art of Dondi White by Andrew Witten and Michael White. Raised in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood, White was part of an active culture of graffiti ""writers"": ""Dondi and his generation perfected the energetic, edgy, probing styles of their predecessors, learning control, fitting the painting to the car/canvas."" Gifted with vision, purpose and talent, White also stood out for crossing boundaries within graffiti-artist and gang culture. Photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant made his work visible to the art world and had a hand in transforming subway-art culture in the process. Color photos. (Nov.)