Biography for Simeon Solomon

Education

He entered the Royal Academy Schools aged only fourteen, and subsequently enjoyed success with his paintings of biblical and classical subjects.

Employment

The young Solomon became part of a circle of artists, writers and aesthetes including Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898), Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) and Swinburne, who enjoyed his witty and ebullient company, and admired his work, Burne-Jones was so impressed by Solomon's draughtsmanship that he called him 'the greatest artist of us all: we are all schoolboys compared with you'. In the 1860s Solomon undertook decorative work for William Morris (1834-1896), and mixed with designers and writers of the burgeoning Aesthetic Movement. Solomon was actively homosexual, in defiance of conventional Victorian morality. In 1873, the course of his career was irrevocably altered when he and another man were arrested in a public urinal in central London and convicted of indecency. The incident was not reported in the press, but as word of Solomon's indictment spread the artistic community began to distance itself from him - it became almost impossible for him to exhibit publicly, and increasingly difficult for him to sell his work.Growing poverty, an unwillingness to depend on the charity of family and friends, and an increasing dependence on alcohol led to Solomon spending his last years in a London workhouse, where he continued as a practising artist, producing deeply personal drawings charged with mystical and visionary intensity.