Welcome!
Thank you for visiting my website.I am a Post-doctoral tutor in the History of Art Department and a tutor at the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York.
In 2009 I completed my Ph.D in art history at the University of York. The title of my thesis was '"He hath Mingled with the Ungodly": the Life of Simeon Solomon after 1873 with a Survey of the Extant Work', and explores, in two volumes, Solomon's life after his arrest for
attempted sodomy in 1873, and makes a new evaluation of the
artist's life and artistic output, using newly discovered visual and
textual archival sources.
I began researching Solomon's post-1873 life in 2004 at the University of York.
My Master's dissertation focused on an examination of Solomon's arrest
documents in both London and Paris, and I received a York Society Trust
grant to pursue this research at the Archives de Paris and the Archives
de la Préfecture de Police de Paris. In 2005 I received an Arts and Humanities Research Council doctoral grant to pursue my Ph.D. research on Solomon.
I continue to research Solomon's life and work and am currently writing a biography of the artist's life. Since February 2010 I have been involved with my colleague Roberto C. Ferrari in the construction of the new Simeon Solomon Research Archive site, and am now its primary editor. You can find the site at www.simeonsolomon.com. The site is a repository of information about Simeon Solomon and his artist siblings Rebecca and Abraham Solomon. Its purpose is to encourage research into the Solomon family of artists by providing a vast archive of primary and secondary information, artwork and exhibition databases and biographies.
My other academic interests include nineteenth-century British painting, particularly the Pre-Raphaelite and Aesthetic movements; nineteenth-century British and international exhibitions; Victorian photography and the work of Frederick Hollyer, and more generally the history of homosexuality; social history of Victorian London, particularly workhouses, asylums, social philanthropy and 'slumming'. If you would like to contact me regarding my work on Simeon Solomon then please click on the 'Contact Me' link on the left of this page.