Simeon Solomon
​Secondary Sources 2007-Present

In the past twenty years, two new research theses on Solomon have been produced at UK universities and leading scholars have continued to publish important work on the artist. In addition, Solomon's work is regularly exhibited alongside that of his peers in major national and international exhibitions focusing on LGBTQ themes as well as Victorian art and Pre-Raphaelitism.

2007-2010

Ferrari, Roberto. C. "The Simeon Solomon Research Archive: Reflections on Seven Years." PRSUS: The Pre-Raphaelite Society Newsletter of the United States, 18 (Winter 2007): 1-2. 

Prettejohn, Elizabeth. "Solomon, Swinburne, Sappho." Victorian Review, 34:2 (Fall 2008): 103-128. 

Evangelista, Stefano. "A Revolting Mistake: Walter Pater's Iconography of Dionysus." Victorian Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Victorian Studies 34.2 (2008): 200-218. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 15 Aug. 2010.

Ferrari, Roberto. C. Simeon Solomon in Italy: The First Trip, 1866-1867, (2009) http://www.oscholars.com/Ravenna/Ravenna1/Simeon_Solomon.htm Last Accessed 20 April 2010. 

Cruise, Colin. "Poetic, Eccentric, Pre-Raphaelite: The Critical Reception of Simeon Solomon's Work at the Dudley Gallery." Writing the Pre-Raphaelites: Text, Context, Subtext. Eds. Michaela Giebelhausen and Tim Barringer. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009. 

Conroy, Carolyn. "He Hath Mingled with the Ungodly: The Life of Simeon Solomon after 1873 with a Survey of the Extant Work." Ph.D. Diss. University of York, 2009. Available HERE

ANNOTATION
Presented in two volumes, this thesis focuses on Solomon's life after his arrest for attempted sodomy in 1873, and makes a radical re-evaluation of the artist's life using newly discovered visual and textual sources. The second volume presents, for the   first time, a database of Solomon's extant works produced after 1873.

2010-2015

Naylor, Aileen. "Simeon Solomon's Work before 1873: Interpretation and Identity". M.Phil. Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2010.

ANNOTATION
The thesis aims to demonstrate that commentaries on the work produced by Solomon before 1873 have been dominated by critics' perceptions of him as a marginal figure. It challenges this perspective by suggesting alternative interpretations of specific  paintings and by analysing a selection of his depictions of solitary women which have been given little critical attention.
UPDATE
Sept 2010: For a copy of this thesis in PDF format click HERE

Janes, Dominic. "Seeing and Tasting the Divine: Simeon Solomon’s Homoerotic Sacrament". Eds. Patrizia di Bello and Gabriel Koureas, Art, History and the Senses: 1830 to the Present (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 35-50.

Long, Burke, O. "Babylon to David and Back Again: The Sexually Charged History of a Victorian Drawing" in The Fate of King David: The Past and Present of a Biblical Icon, ed. by Tod Linafelt, Claudia Camp and Timothy Beal (T&T Clark, New York and London, 2010) pp. 208-228. 

ANNOTATION
Burke O. Long investigates how Solomon's sexually charged Babylon (1859), with an original allusion to Jeremiah 51:7, migrated to the Books of Samuel in subsequent exhibitions and commentary as the original pen and ink drawing received mistaken titles related to David and Saul. This history of reception among art historians and critics mirrors (1) the artist's changes in culturally constructed status, from publicly disgraced and nearly forgotten transgressor of Victorian sexual propriety to celebrated pre-Raphaelite artist and contemporary gay icon; and (2) runs more or less parallel to a revitalized reception of the Saul/David/Jonathan traditions among professional biblical scholars who, responding to similar cultural shifts, explored sexual ambiguities in these narratives and created space for transgressive same-sex readings.

Conroy, Carolyn and Roberto C. Ferrari. "Solomon's Shame-Free Art" The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide, 18.5 (2011), 18-20.

Ward, Henrietta. "'The Rising Genius' Simeon Solomon's Unexplored Interpretation of Sandro Botticelli" The British Art Journal, Xll.3 (2012), 60-7.

ANNOTATION
The influence of Botticelli on the work of the Pre-Raphaelites has usually focused on Rossetti and Burne-Jones with little attention paid to the work of Simeon Solomon. This article explores these influences demonstrating that Botticelli was integral to Solomon’s development, both in his early religious works and in his later images of male beauty. 

Conroy, Carolyn. “The Simeon Solomon Research Archive Online.” Pre-Raphaelite Society Newsletter of the United States (January, 2012).

Conroy, Carolyn. “The Simeon Solomon Research Archive: Reflections on Thirteen Years,” Pre-Raphaelite Society Newsletter of the United States – 25th Anniversary Edition (2014). 

Cooke, Simon. The Biblical Illustrations of Simeon Solomon (2015) The Victorian Web http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/ssolomon/cooke.html Last accessed 16 July 2015.

ANNOTATION
Cooke examines Solomon's biblical illustrations from Dalziels' Bible Gallery published in 1881 and the artist’s contributions to The Leisure Hour and Once and Week. Illustrated.

Sakoda, Maho. "'I Sleep but my Heart Waketh': Simeon Solomon and Walt Whitman" in Pre-Raphaelite Society Review, vol XXIII, no. 2, (summer 2015), pp, 10-20.

ANNOTATION
Sakoda contends that Solomon's visual and literary ideas about sleep are profoundly influenced by American poet Walt Whitman. To make this point Sakoda examines in some detail Solomon's drawing The Sleepers and the One who Watcheth (1867) and his prose poem from 1871 A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep.

2016-2020

Conroy, Carolyn. "Mingling with the Ungodly: Simeon Solomon in Queer Victorian London," in Simon Avery and Katherine Graham (eds), Sex, Time and Place: Queer Histories of London, c.1850 to the Present. (Bloomsbury, 2016), pp. 185-201

Conroy, Carolyn. "Images of Desire: Twenty Sketches by Simeon Solomon," The Pre-Raphaelite Society Review, Vol. XXIV, No. 3, Autumn 2016, pp. 28-43.

Dau, Duc. "The Song of Songs for Difficult Queers: Simeon Solomon, Neil Bartlett, and A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep," in Jongwoo Jeremy Kim and Christopher Reed (eds), Queer Difficulty in Art and Poetry: Rethinking the Sexed Body in Verse and Visual Culture (Routledge, 2017).

Conroy, Carolyn. "Simeon Solomon's Work in the Hugh Lane Gallery," in Jessica O'Donnell (ed.), in Jessica O'Donnell (Ed.), Hugh Lane: That Great Pictured Song, Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane, (2017), pp. 64-79.

​Conroy, Carolyn & Roberto C. Ferrari. (eds), 'Special Edition on Simeon Solomon', PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020).

Ferrari, Roberto. C. 'Pre-Raphaelite Portraitist: Simeon Solomon's Early Portrait Drawings’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 30-40.

Conroy, Carolyn. ‘Saints and Demons: Unexplored Drawings by Simeon Solomon in the Ashmolean Museum Collection’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 72-81.

Cruise, Colin - 'Truth, Nature and Intensity: Solomon and Schnorr Illustrating the Bible’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 5-17.

Allen, Jasmine. 'Simeon Solomon and Stained Glass’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 18-29.

Buckle, Scott Thomas. 'Simeon Solomon and Punch’s ‘Private View of the Royal Academy,’1865' PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 41-46.

Janes, Dominic. 'Religion, Cross-Dressing and Sexual Desire in the Art of Simeon Solomon’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 47-56.

Seymour, Gayle M. 'Simeon Solomon in Venice: Carnival and Canova’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 57-71.

Naylor, Aileen. 'The Actor and the Artist: Cecil Crofton’s Gift of a Drawing by Simeon Solomon’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 82-88.

Jackson, Ray. 'Exhibition Review: Simeon Solomon’s The Mystery of Faith ’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 89-92.

Hamburger, Peter & Carolyn Conroy. 'The Salaman Family & Simeon Solomon’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 93-96.

Vigon, Frank. 'The Restoration of Simeon Solomon's Grave’ PRS Review, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, (Autumn, 2020), pp. 97-100.

2021-Present

Kennard, Clive Robert. "Between Types: a Symbolic Analysis of Simeon Solomon's Hebrew Image." Ph.D. Diss. University of York, 2022.