Seattle Now & Then: A Postscript on Art Panels, ‘The Evolution of Light’

(Click and click again to enlarge photos)

NOW: Christine Elliott Morgan, granddaughter of artist John W. Elliott, eyes his panel #26 (“Cochrane’s Dissolvent Lamp, English,” 1826) at City Light’s North Service Center, where it hangs in an employee-only, second-floor hallway next to a women’s restroom and across from a photocopier. (Clay Eals)

Published in The Seattle Times online on Dec. 18, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Dec. 21, 2025
a Postscript to an earlier column,
published in The Seattle Times online on Sept. 26, 2025
and in Pacific NW Magazine of the printed Times on Sept. 28, 2025

Mystery unravels

City Light sold its ‘Evolution of Lighting’
metal-art panels at scrap-metal prices

By Clay Eals

Remember “The Evolution of Lighting,” a set of gleaming Britannia metal-art panels created for Seattle City Light and showcased for more than 60 years in the lobby of its former headquarters at Third and Madison?

In September, we reported their seeming disappearance in 1996 and how all but a few recently surfaced in the hands of a local antique dealer. We asked readers why the panels vanished and where the missing ones might be. Responses reveal a dispiriting saga of unique, revered art slipping quietly out of public stewardship.

THEN: A portrait of West Seattle artist John W. Elliott in 1966. His art adorns dozens of public and private buildings and spaces in Seattle, Tacoma, Olympia, Portland and elsewhere in the Northwest. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)

Chief among our respondents was Christine Elliott Morgan, granddaughter of artist John W. Elliott (1883-1971). Elliott created 34 of the 3-by-2-foot repoussé panels in 1935 to encircle City Light’s lobby from above. Morgan had been looking into the whereabouts of her grandfather’s panels for years, without much luck, and wanted to help. Elliott had added two more when the panels were reconfigured in 1958 into a 27-by-8-foot wall in the same lobby. Together, the 36 thin, silver-sheened pieces made of Britannia metal, a pewter alloy, depicted the story of light, from prehistoric to modern times.

THEN: In his Alki basement in 1958, artist John W. Elliott wields a tiny hammer to shape #33 (“Carbon Arc Lamp,” 1870-1920) of his 36 repoussé metal-art panels for Seattle City Light. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)

As a girl, Morgan often heard the “very private and quiet” Elliott working in his Alki basement, shaping the  panels with a tiny hammer. “He would spend hours down there,” she says. “It was tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap. He didn’t brag about things. He just did them.”

This fall, Morgan — a West Seattle native, lifelong Seattleite and ardent advocate for Elliott’s Northwest-themed art — joined our search for answers. After four weeks of email exchanges with City Light and a half-hour virtual interview of two utility staff, this picture emerged:

  • THEN: As photographed by John W. Elliott’s son around 2002, several repoussé metal-art panels adorned a City Light employee-only waiting area and hallway on floor 35 or 36 of the Seattle Municipal Tower. (Bill Elliott)

    In 1996, City Light employees moved to the Seattle Municipal Tower, where most of the panels were hung in staff-only corridors on floors 35 and 36.

  • Sometime after 1996, panel #26 (“Cochrane’s Dissolvent Lamp, English,” 1826) migrated to City Light’s North Service Center on North 97th Street, where it still hangs in a staff-only, second-floor hallway next to a women’s restroom and across from a photocopier. No one we spoke with recalls why.
  • In 2022, City Light began remodeling floors 35 and 36 of the Municipal Tower, removing interior walls to create an open concept and accommodate more staff.
  • City Light says that in October 2023 the utility surplused 28 of the art panels, then sold them in September 2024 to a single buyer at a scrap-metal price of just $10 apiece. Presumably the remaining seven panels met an identical fate, though City Light has no record of their sale. The utility offers no rationale for the panels’ dispersal other than a need to “reduce belongings” for the remodel.

Does City Light regret letting them go? “If circumstances had been different and the folks that were removing it were aware of its value as art, they likely wouldn’t have ended up in surplus,” says DaVonna Johnson, the utility’s people and culture officer, who oversees workplace logistics and facilities.

Would City Light buy them back? “I’m probably not in a position to say,” she says.

THEN: Panels #7, left, and #12 from “The Evolution of Light” series, shown in images from a 1960 Seattle City Light booklet, are still missing. (Seattle City Light)

Two panels, #7 (“Greek Clay Lamp,” 500-300 B.C.) and #12 (“Iron Saucer Lamp, French,” 13th century), remain missing.

West Seattle’s Mike Shaughnessy, who last summer purchased 32 of the panels from the same picker (four at first, then another 28) for $12,000 and has located a 33rd, still hopes to reunite all 36 in a public installation.

NOW: In his shop, Mike Shaughnessy lines up panels before taking them to storage. (Clay Eals)

Morgan shares his dream: “They were really so special, I guess because there were so many of them, and they were all in one place.”

WEB EXTRAS

Big thanks to Mike Shaughnessy, Jenn Strang, DaVonna Johnson, Liana Woo, Mike Wong and especially Christine Elliott Morgan for their invaluable help with this installment!

First, don’t miss the original column on this topic, published this past September. It has many web extras not included here.

No 360-degree video for this Postscript. However, below you will find 12 additional photos and 5 historical clips from The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer online archive (available via Seattle Public Library), Newspapers.com, Washington Digital Newspapers and other sources that were helpful in the preparation of this column.

NOW: In an alternate view, Christine Elliott Morgan, granddaughter of artist John W. Elliott, poses with his panel #26 (“Cochrane’s Dissolvent Lamp, English,” 1826) at City Light’s North Service Center, where it hangs in an employee-only, second-floor hallway next to a women’s restroom and across from a photocopier. (Clay Eals)
From 1935 to 1958, John W. Elliott’s panels, such as #4 (“Egyptian Clay Saucer Lamp,” 2,500-2,000 BC)  were framed by his sun-ray panels in the lobby of the ole Seattle City Light building at Third & Madison. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
A detail of one of the decorative sun-ray panels. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
A 1935 poster of the 34 John W. Elliott panes that made up “The Evolution of Lighting.” (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
The J.D. Ross statement at the bottom of the 1935 poster. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
A sample of John W. Elliott’s sculpted signature. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
A primer in repoussé art, part one. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
A primer in repoussé art, part two. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
A primer in repoussé art, part three. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
January 2018 display of five Olympia Brewing Company panels created by John W. Elliott for the 50th anniversary of Olympic Brewing in 1946. (Karen Johnson, curator, Olympia Tumwater Foundation, courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
John W. Elliott’s sculpted plate for the annual local Paul Bunyan Awards from the 1960s and 1960s. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
The Paul Bunyan Award, sculpted by John W. Elliott, as presented to the Seattle Times in 1945. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
Jan. 23, 1957, Seattle Business article, along with winners of the Paul Bunyan Award. (Courtesy Christine Elliott Morgan)
Oct. 8, 1948, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, detailing one of Elliott’s day jobs, p36.
July 1959 Seattle City Night News, p14.
July 6, 1959, Seattle Times, p2.
1966 Olympia Churchman on John W. Elliott crosier.

 

Now & then here and now…