Simeon Solomon | drawings

Gay, Jewish and alcoholic, Pre-Raphaelite artist Simeon Solomon was always going to stand out in Victorian Britain, which was undergoing a revival of Christian, moral temperance. Initially, at least, Solomon was accepted into the art establishment, exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy. His large-scale works were peopled by figures from antiquity and the Torah, rich in allegory and drenched in sentiment (“bordering a little on the crapulous” as a contemporary critic opined, though this could apply equally to their creator). After an arrest for cottaging, Solomon’s fortunes waned, and once released from prison he was reduced to selling matches and drawing on pavements. He spent the last 20 years of his life in a workhouse in London’s Covent Garden, where he died on this day in 1905. These studies and stand-alone drawings display the draughtsmanship so admired by fellow artists, and include portraits of Burne-Jones, Swinburne and the delightfully named Fanny Eaton.

Portrait of Edward Burne-Jones 1859

Portrait of Fanny Eaton 1859

Portrait of Algernon Charles Swinburne 1863

Illustration to the Song of Solomon 1868

Angel and Youth 1881

Cupid 1886

A Venetian Study 1892

Night Looking Upon Sleep her Beloved Child 1893

Helen of Troy 1894

Terra 1895

Hope 1896

Dawn 1897

Further reading
Places: Under the Hill

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