Solomon Simeon

Simeon Solomon (9 October 1840 - 14 August 1905), British painter.

 

He lost his father in early childhood, his brother Abraham was a substitute father and also and artistic model. Simeon attended F. S. Cary’s Academy in 1852 and in 1856 he joined his brother at the Royal Academy Schools in 1856. If Abraham prefered the genre subjects, Simeon was much more atracted to the Pre-Raphaelite style. Because of his friendship with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who had a huge influence on him, Simeon progressed rapidly and was in a hort time a very skilled draftman.

 

Coming from an orthodox Jewish family, he was a very spiritual person, and often chose his subjects from the Old Testament and from the contemporary Jewish life, having a real passion for the religious themes.

He was a rather successful painter, but his career was completely destroyed in February 1873, when he was arrested homosexual offences. Even if the charges were dropped, all his former friends rejected him, and his reputation was shattered forever. In a society governed by the strict rules of the Victorian moral code, such an accusation was the end of any career. For the rest of his life Simeon was an outcast. Broken, he turned to drinking, and died in 1905. During his last years he supported himself by making drawings and pastels, at very low prices.

 

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