Drawing for Changes and Disappearances No. 33

1979-1982 · Drawing

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Drawing for Changes and Disappearances No. 33” now? Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 10 days ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

Details

Accession number: 2001.142.17

What it shows

Writing

In the catalog

Drawings & watercolors Graphite Contemporary art 20th century American

Sources

National Gallery of Art
Image: National Gallery of Art — © the artist or rights holder

In the life of John Cage

The whole life

1967–1979
Books: “A Year from Monday”, “M”, “Empty Words”
Cage goes on writing books of prose and poetry (mesostics): “A Year from Monday” is first published by Wesleyan University Press in 1967 (other accounts give 1968), “M” in 1973 and “Empty Words” in 1979.
1978 · Membership
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
January 1978
Prints: Kathan Brown's invitation
In January 1978 Kathan Brown of Crown Point Press invites Cage to engage in printmaking; from then on he produces a series of prints every year until his death, and these, together with some late watercolours, make up the largest part of his extant visual art.
1980s
Illness in the 1980s: a stroke, a broken arm
Over the 1980s Cage's health worsens progressively: arthritis, sciatica and arteriosclerosis; he has a stroke that restricts the movement of his left leg, breaks an arm in 1985, and pursues a macrobiotic diet. His biographer David Revill links this with the fire that appears in his visual work from 1985 — not only the fire of passion but fire as transitoriness and fragility.

All works