THEN: Details crowd Irwin Caplan’s absorbing 1968 cartoon poster of Seattle’s downtown and West Seattle shore. One version (this one) was in metallic green with a mustard background, the other in mustard with a light-blue background. Frederick & Nelson sold them for $1.95. Preserved copies today sell on the internet for much higher prices. (Clay Eals collection)NOW: Emulating the 1968 Seattle poster’s view of downtown from West Seattle, the offspring of the late Irwin and Madeline Caplan, all in their early 70s, stand at Hamilton Viewpoint, from left: Joan Clarke of North Bend, Steve Caplan of downtown Seattle, and Robert Caplan of Peoria, Arizona. (Clay Eals)
Published in The Seattle Times online on Feb. 26, 2026
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on March 1, 2026
Whimsical details from 1968 Seattle enliven classic Caplan poster
By Clay Eals
Eye-level, it’s push-pinned to my hallway wall. If I’m not in a hurry, one of its details arrests and rivets me, always inducing a grin. I imagine the same experience for countless others over the past nearly 60 years.
Here’s an alternate version, in mustard with a light-blue background. (Clay Eals collection)
Our “Then” image is a 30-by-40-inch poster, a fanciful take on downtown Seattle and the West Seattle shore in 1968.
It looks like a cockeyed cross between a bird’s-eye map and “Where’s Waldo?”
As period caricature, it emphasizes some aspects and conflates others, but that’s part of its charm, invoking memories and inviting comparisons to today.
THEN: Irwin “Cap” Caplan works in his Laurelhurst home studio, circa 1968. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)
Commissioned by the revered but long-gone Frederick & Nelson department store (now, there’s a memory), the poster was the vision of Seattle artist Irwin Caplan (1919-2007).
Throughout his life, from his upbringing in Madison Park to Garfield High, the University of Washington and beyond, Caplan created images in plentiful styles and forms. But he made his fame after World War II as a premier magazine cartoonist.
THEN: From 1955, a Caplan cartoon for Collier’s makes its point with no need for a gag line. (Courtesy Steve Caplan)
His panels graced an astonishing array of mid-century periodicals: Look, Time, Liberty, True, Holiday, This Week, Argosy, Esquire, Ladies Home Journal, the New Yorker and, in syndication, from Collier’s and the Saturday Evening Post. Later, he created commercial art and Seattle Times Sunday magazine covers, also teaching drawing and painting at the UW.
THEN: Caplan’s self-caricature, mid-1950s. (Courtesy Steve Caplan)
It was as if a pencil, pen or brush never left his hand. “If he was awake,” says RobertCaplan, oldest of three offspring, “he was doing art.”
Caplan’s dizzying Seattle poster became a career highlight. Priced at $1.95 (mailing tube 10 cents extra), it sold enough to go into second printing. “The longer you look,” the Frederick’s ads aptly strutted, “the more familiar names and landmarks you see!”
THEN: Along with the Chief Seattle statue, Seattle Post-Intelligencer globe and Monorail (all at left), this detail from Caplan’s 1968 Seattle poster shows the now-defunct Frederick & Nelson department store with its signature doorman. Frederick’s commissioned Caplan to create the poster. (Clay Eals collection)
Therein, the Space Needle whirls, while downtown’s soon-to-open Seafirst Building (now Safeco Plaza) —then the city’s highest high-rise, nicknamed “the box the Space Needle came in” — sports a “Big Daddy” pennant.
THEN: This detail from Caplan’s 1968 Seattle poster shows five Boeing mechanics dangling from a jet above the Smith Tower. (Clay Eals collection)
Flying past the Smith Tower is a plump jet from which five mechanics dangle. A trailing banner, oblivious to imminent corporate calamity, proclaims, “Boeing Job No. 50327.”
Six superimposed ovals spotlight districts like Seattle Center, in which Caplan asks “Where’s Zollie?” — a salute to Zalman Volchok, who booked the Beatles’ first Seattle concert in 1964, at the Coliseum (now Climate Pledge Arena), and later general-managed the city’s then-new, now-departed basketball SuperSonics.
THEN: This oval detail from Caplan’s 1968 Seattle poster depicts the University of Washington. (Clay Eals collection)
Another oval highlights the UW, framed by the motto “Lux Sit” (“Let there be light”) alongside a “Love” picket sign and a nod to the Helix underground paper.
Hydros, Chief Seattle, the ferry Kalakala, Pacific Science Center and future Rainier Tower architect Minoru Yamasaki — the references seem delightfully endless.
The scene is jam-packed, busy, vibrant. Also, some would say, prescient.
THEN: On top of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and First Avenue businesses, this oval detail depicts the Pike Place Market and efforts to save it. (Clay Eals collection)
WEB EXTRAS
Big thanks to Joan Clarke, Steve Caplan, Robert Caplan and especially Raulin Sterne for their invaluable help with this installment!
To see Clay Eals‘ 360-degree video of the “Now” prospect and compare it with the “Then” photos while hearing this column read aloud by Clay, check out our Seattle Now & Then 360 version of the column.
We’ll begin this array of extras with several rarities submitted by readers in response to this post:
This cartoon poster of San Francisco — created by Jim Michaelson and copyrighted by San Jose’s Dave Schiller for Sparta Graphics — has format, colors and style eerily identical to that of the Irwin Caplan’s 1968 Seattle poster. Did this poster inspire Frederick & Nelson, Irwin Caplan or both one year later? We may never know. (Courtesy Glen Beebe)Here is the signature of artist Jim Michaelson from the from the right side of the poster, below the light-colored cityscape. (Courtesy Glen Beebe)Here is the Sparta Graphics credit from the lower right corner of the poster. (Courtesy Glen Beebe)This undated original Irwin Caplan painting hangs on the wall of reader Howard Droker. (Courtesy Howard Droker)This 1971 original Irwin Caplan painting hangs on the wall of reader Howard Droker. (Courtesy Howard Droker)Irwin Caplan was one of six artists who created designs for the Rainier Beer Cartoon Jubilee series of beer cans in 1956. His signature appears at the base of the green can at right. (Courtesy reader Carl Scheurman)In December 1968, West Seattle’s Mike Munson, then a Northwestern University journalism student, displays Christmas gifts with Caplan’s 1968 Seattle poster on the wall in his apartment in Evanston, Illinois.Caplan’s 1968 Seattle poster has “pride of place” over the fireplace of Seattle’s Susan Ehlers, who bought it in person in about 1969 at Frederick & Nelson. (Courtesy Susan Ehlers)Irwin Caplan draws while he was a student at Garfield High School or the University of Washington. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)THEN: Caplan’s 1935-36 interpretation of the Hooverville camp on the Seattle waterfront when he attended Garfield High School. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)1937 Irwin Caplan monkey mural at Garfield High School. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)1937 Irwin Caplan mural of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox at Garfield High School. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)1937 Irwin Caplan report card from Garfield High School. Note circles over “i” letters in first name. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)November 1939 Irwin Caplan cover art for University of Washington Columns magazine. (Courtesy Steve Caplan)Charcoal drawing by Sgt. Irwin Caplan at Fort Knox, Kentucky, for Army manual or magazine during World War II. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)Irwin Caplan drawing of future United Nations site outside his New York apartment, March 1, 1948. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)Irwin Caplan painting of workers taking down building to make way for United Nations, New York City, circa 1949. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)Irwin Caplan cartoon for Collier’s, published in “1949 Best Cartoons of the Year.” (Courtesy Steve Caplan)Irwin Caplan cartoon for Saturday Evening Post. (Courtesy Steve Caplan)Irwin Caplan works at office desk, New York City, 1951. (Courtesy Steve Caplan)Irwin Caplan cartoon and mini-profile for the 1954 book “What’s Funny About That?” (Courtesy Steve Caplan)Irwin Caplan cartoon from book “1955 Best Cartoons of the Year.” (Courtesy Steve Caplan)Title page of “1955 Best Cartoons of the Year.” (Courtesy Steve Caplan)A Garfield High School mural commemorating Irwin Caplan and his 1962 Seattle World’s Fair poster. (Courtesy Steve Caplan)In this southwest-facing view, Caplan places the old Plymouth Congregational Church in context with its neighboring high-rise in 1966 when the church faced demolition from the April 29, 1965, earthquake. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)Feb. 23, 1936, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p61.May 26, 1937, Seattle Times, p34.May 27, 1937, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p15.April 28, 1963, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p36.Sept. 15, 1968, Seattle Times, p16.Oct. 4, 1968, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p15, Emmett Watson column.Oct. 16, 1968, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p18.Dec. 10, 1968, Seattle Times, p16.March 9, 1969, Seattle Times, p119.March 23, 1969, Seattle Times, p154.March 23, 1969, Seattle Times, p155.June 24, 1969, Seattle Times, p13Jan. 17, 1971, Seattle Times, p130-131.May 5, 1974, Seattle Times, p146.May 5, 1974, Seattle Times, p150.Nov. 25, 1979, Seattle Times, p213.Aug. 31, 1980, Seattle Times, p168.Sept. 7, 1980, Seattle Times, p12.Sept. 14, 1980, Seattle Times, p14.Sept. 11, 2005, Seattle Times, p33.The first page of an undated, six-page RC Harvey magazine profile of Irwin Caplan. (Courtesy Robert Caplan)Feb. 25, 2007, Seattle Times, p19.Feb. 25, 2007, Seattle Times, p25.
3 thoughts on “Seattle Now & Then: 1968 Caplan Seattle poster”
Irwin Caplan also was one of six artists who created designs for the Rainier Beer Cartoon Jubilee series in 1956. I have pictures of his design from my collection of Rainier (and other) beer cans.
Thanks for this great piece. My parents were at Garfield with “Cappie,” as we knew him, and were life-long friends. Cappie painted an army footlocker for my toy box. We have two of his paintings in our living room. He was a wonderful guy.
Irwin Caplan also was one of six artists who created designs for the Rainier Beer Cartoon Jubilee series in 1956. I have pictures of his design from my collection of Rainier (and other) beer cans.
Thanks for this great piece. My parents were at Garfield with “Cappie,” as we knew him, and were life-long friends. Cappie painted an army footlocker for my toy box. We have two of his paintings in our living room. He was a wonderful guy.
I bought my Irwin Caplan poster in-person from F & N ca. 1969. It now has pride of place over my fireplace.
I sent my computer a photo of it from my phone, but I couldn’t figure out how to copy it here. Anyhow, thanks for the article!