Camille Solon

Camille Antoine Arnoux Solon (1877–1960) was a muralist and ceramist. He was born in Staffordshire, England to French parents, and emigrated to the USA where he worked with architect Julia Morgan doing painting and tile work in the private libraries and indoor pools of William Randolph Hearst's mansions and estates at San Simeon, California. He was the grandson of Léon Arnoux, art director of Mintons Limited, and son of Marc-Louis-Emmanuel Solon, a French porcelain artist who became the preeminent master of pâte-sur-pâte technique during his tenure at the same firm.

Camille A. Solon was one of nine children born to Marie Antoinette Laure Arnoux and Louis Marc Solon. He was born on March 27, 1877 in Stoke-on-Trent, the center of England's pottery industry.

In 1887, at the age of ten, Solon enrolled at Cotton College, a boarding school in a rural part of Staffordshire. He stayed there till 1892. He learned from his father and later studied at the Slade School, University College London.

In 1914 Solon immigrated to California and joined his brother Albert Solon, who was the pottery director at Arequipa Sanatorium in Fairfax, California. Arequipa was a ceramic therapy program for patients recovering from tuberculosis. Albert Solon later founded Solon and Schemmel Tile Company and Camille Solon likely worked at his brother's company early on. Albert's company, now known as Stonelight Tile, is one of only three major California tile manufacturers from the 1920s to have survived to the present.

From 1925-1940 Solon was a designer and art director for William Randolph Hearst at San Simeon. Solon designed the blue-and-gold Venetian glass tile mosaics used in the indoor Roman Pool at Hearst Castle. The mosaics that cover the walls, ceiling, and pool are made up of one-inch square smalti glass and fused gold tiles. The inspiration for the designs came from the 5th Century Mausoleum of Galla Placidia. Solon also designed and painted the murals in the Gothic Study of Casa Grande Library.

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