Simeon Solomon Biography

Simeon Solomon was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter.
Solomon's association with a group of homosexuals in the late 1460s, together with the controversial interpretations of his works offered by writers as opposed in their views as Swinburne (Dark Blue, July 1871) and the Scottish poet Robert Buchanan (Contemporary Review, Oct. 1871), gave rise to a perception of a morbidly deviant artist given over to sensuality and sado-masochistic impulses. In the context of the 1860s, however, Solomon held similar aesthetic views to artists who went on to establish "respectable" careers - Burne-Jones, Richmond and Leighton - all of whom shared an appreciation for youthful Italian male models, along with androgyny as both a physical and spiritual ideal.
His career ended as a result of multiple arrests.