Born in London of Jewish parents, Simeon was the youngest of eight children, He entered the Royal Academy School in 1856. Solomon's early work combined the pictorial style of the Pre-Raphaelites with Hebraic subject matter, and was already protraying sexually anbiguous scenes. By the mid-1860s Solomon developed a more monumental and androgynous figure style and incresingly depicted pagan and mythological scenes.

Solomon's career went into abrupt decline after he and a 60-year-old stableman, George Roberts, were arrested at a public urinal in London on 11 February 1873 and subsequently charged "that they did unlauwfully attempt feloniously to commit the abominable Crime of Buggery".

While Roberts was sentenced to 18 months of hard labour, Solomon is sentenced just a fine. One year later he is again arrested in a public urinal near the Bourse, for Buggery with Henri Lefranc, the alias of Raphael-Maximillien Dumont, and this time Solomon is sentenced to three months in prison and a fine of 16 francs.

Following the trial, Solomon was denied the opportunity to exhibit and was also disowned by many of his former circle. Despite his social disgrace, Solomon was able to sell drawings to a few loyal supporters.

Despite that, Salomon's life during the three decades after the trial was characterised by extreme poverty and vagrancy, and landed up a destitute pavement artist, drawing sketches on the sidewalk and begging for money from passersby.

He spent his final years at the St Giles Workhouse in London, where he died from'heart failure aggravated by bronchitis and alcoholism.

Source: excerpts from: Aldrich R. & Wotherspoon G., Who's Who in Gay and Lesbian History, from Antiquity to WWII, Routledge, London, 2001 - et alii