The WOW Report

  • WOW Report
  • About
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race Live!
  • WOW Presents Plus
  • What to Watch
  • Store
You are here: Home / Culture / Art / #ArtDept: Simeon Solomon’s “Bacchus”

#ArtDept: Simeon Solomon’s “Bacchus”

By Stephen Rutledge on August 6, 2017 10:48 am

Bacchus (1867), Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery

Simeon Solomon (1840 –1905)

London born Solomon was part of a family of wealthy Jewish merchants. In his youth, he was astonished by the Biblical stories of David and Jonathan, and he used his works to express same-sex sexual attraction. Solomon was a leader in moving British art away from the Pre-Raphaelites and bringing a more sensual and liberated sensibility to painting, a move that garnered scorn from the critics of his day.

Bacchus shows a young man whose divine, androgynous beauty tempts and blinds, against the backdrop of a mountain sunset.

As a student at the Royal Academy in London, Solomon’s first exhibition was in 1858. He continued to show his work at the Royal Academy’s galleries until 1872.

In 1873, at 32-years-old, and at the height of his artistic career, Solomon was arrested with a laborer in a public urinal in Stratford Place Mews in London. Both men were charged with “unlawfully attempting to commit the abominable crime of buggery”. They insisted that they were innocent, but the court found both of them guilty of attempted sodomy.

Solomon served six weeks at the Clerkenwell House Of Detention. After his release, Solomon was admitted to two separate private lunatic asylums in London by his desperate, confused family, but both stays were brief, and on both occasions Solomon was, unsurprisingly, discharged as “unimproved”. A year later, he was arrested in Paris in a public urinal with a male prostitute. He was charged with “outrage public à la pudeur” and served three months in a Paris jail.

In the 1880s and 1890s, despite drinking too much and periods of deep poverty, with time spent in and out of the St. Giles Workhouse in one of London’s poorest areas, Solomon continued to work, supported by friends and family who had not abandoned him. His drawings and paintings were reproduced as photographic copies by London photographer Frederick Hollyer. This work was popular with a new generation of a certain kind of young men, including Oscar Wilde. The gay poet Lionel Johnson, filled his London flat lined with Solomon’s art. Irish poet W. B. Yeats was a collector too.

Wilde’s lover Robbie Ross, shared speculative tales of Solomon’s “scandalous” and “eccentric” behavior. The homophobia and the criminalization of homosexual acts in Britain that lasted until 1967 colored the critical attention that was paid to both Wilde’s and Solomon’s life and work. In the final three decades of Solomon’s life, he was open about his gayness. He also exerted considerable influence on the next generation of gay men.

The Moon And Sleep (1894), The Tate

In 1905, at 65-years-old, Solomon died from complications from alcoholism. He was buried at the Jewish Cemetery in the working-class London neighborhood of Willesden.

Solomon produced hundreds of pieces. They can be found in important museums and galleries around the globe, including The Tate, The Victoria and Albert, The Musée d’Orsay and The Metropolitan Museum Of Art in NYC.

 

UPDATE: OOPS! Our bad! The first version of this story incorrectly labeled the museum this painting is at!

Hi guys, this is great but wrong museum! It’s in the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (UK) collection not Birmingham Museum of Art (USA).

— Birmingham Museums (@BM_AG) August 8, 2017

Show the love:

  • Tweet
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Art, Culture, Gay, History, LBGTQ

More

#QWERRRKOUT Tuesday: “A Genderfluid Artist that Loves to do Crazy Cosplays, Horror Looks”- Mio Hikaru (NSFW)

#QWERRRKOUT Tuesday: “A Genderfluid Artist that Loves to do Crazy Cosplays, Horror Looks”- Mio Hikaru (NSFW)

by Paisley Dalton on May 24, 2022 11:07 am

Beanie Feldstein! Jean Smart! Hannah Einbinder! Richard Ayoade! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!

Beanie Feldstein! Jean Smart! Hannah Einbinder! Richard Ayoade! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!

by Blake Jacobs on May 20, 2022 11:00 am

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Trending


#ArtDept: The Male Nudes of English Painter, Brian Hatton

#RealEstatePorn: Amy Schumer Is Selling Her NYC “Fancy Rich Person’s Apartment” (For $15 Million!)

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars’ Season 7 Premieres Tomorrow

#ConDRAGulations! Chloë Sevigny Married Her Husband (Again?) & Didn’t Wear Just One Dress (She Wore 3!)

#RealEstatePorn: Why Did Kim K Just Drop $6.3 Million for a VERY Funky House Across the Street From Kanye..?

About

From the creators of The Eyes of Tammy Faye, Party Monster, Million Dollar Listing, RuPaul's Drag Race, I Am Britney Jean, Big Freedia, and more.

Sarah Jessica Parker & Matthew Broderick! Regine! Jennifer Grey! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!
Nicolas Cage! Elon Musk! Paris Hilton! Margaret Mitchell! Charo Joins for the WOW Report for Radio Andy!
Michelle Obama! Devo! Betty Ford! Kardashians! Drag Race Finale! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!
Kim K! Billie Eilish! Molly Shannon! Laurie Anderson! The WOW Report for Radio Andy!
Olivia! Brad Pitt! Gaga! Alec Mapa Joins Us for Our 300th Episode of the WOW Report for Radio Andy!

© 2021 World of Wonder Productions, Inc | World of Wonder is a trademark of World of Wonder Productions, Inc | Privacy

Copyright © 2022 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in