Simeon Solomon is a an unfortunate omission from the Washington version of the PRB exhibition. Even at the Tate he was represented by only one work, no. 133: Bachus (1867). Tim Barringer writes in the catalogue: Solomon... offered a powerful, homoerotic contribution to British Aesthietic painting to contest the assertive heterosexuality of Rossetti's Aestheticism and the hetero-normative assumptions underpinning most Pre-Raphaelite painting.
His compelling argument makes it all but inexplicable that he wasn't brought into the "avant-garde" narrative. Solomon's work wasn't invoked once, in neither the opening lecture nor in the nine hours of the symposium.
Here's a good piece about Solomon and his work from the Guardian: Fallen Angel
Also see the online Solomon archive: Birmingham Museums
This Friday we'll be talking about Solomon in conjunction with the writing of Walter Pater, especially his famous Conclusion to Studies in the History of the Renaisscance (1873).
Victorian Avant-Garde // A Seminar at the Corcoran School of Arts and Design at the George Washington University // Spring 2016 // Professor Casey Smith // kcs@gwu.edu // The painting above is by Sir John Everett Millais, 1829–1896, British, L'Enfant du Regiment, 1854 to 1855, Oil on paper, laid on canvas, mounted on board, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
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