He received early training from his father, Angelo Solimena, with whom he executed a Paradise for the cathedral of Nocera (a place where he spent a big part of his life) and a Vision of St. Cyril of Alexandria for the church of San Domenico at Solofra.

He modeled his art—for he was a highly conventional painter—after the Roman Baroque masters, Luca Giordano and Giovanni Lanfranco, and Mattia Preti, whose technique of warm brownish shadowing Solimena emulated.

Solimena painted many frescoes in Naples, altarpieces, celebrations of weddings and courtly occasions, mythological subjects, characteristically chosen for their theatrical drama, and portraits.

A typical example of the elaborately constructed allegorical "machines" of his early mature style, fully employing his mastery of chiaroscuro, is the Allegory of Rule (1690) from the Stroganoff collection, which has come to the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

Among his many pupils were Giuseppe Bonito (1707–89), Domenico Antonio Vaccaro (1678-1745), Nicola Maria Rossi, Lorenzo De Caro, Jacopo Cestaro, Andrea dell'Asta, Paolo De Majo, Ludovico De Majo, Pietro Capelli, Domenico Mondo, Onofrio Avellino, Scipione Cappella, Giovanni della Camera,[3] Francesco Campora,[4] Alessandro Guglielmi,[5] Leonardo Oliviero,[6] Salvatore Olivieri,[7] Salvatore Pace,[8] Romualdo Polverino,[9] Paolo Gamba, Bernardino Fera, Evangelista Schiano, Gaspare Traversi, Francesco Narici, Alessio D'Elia, Santolo Cirillo, Michele Foschini, Tommaso Martini, Alfonso Di Spigna, Michelangelo Schilles, Giovanni Battista Vela, Ferrante Amendola, Eugenio Vegliante, Romualdo Formosa, and most notably Corrado Giaquinto, Francesco De Mura and Sebastiano Conca.