He was the son of Colonel (later, Major-General) Sergey Solomko (1835-1897),[1] who was employed in the service of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, and he grew up in the Konstantinovsky Palace.
In the 1890s, he worked for Aleksey Suvorin, providing illustrations for stories by Pushkin[2] and Chekhov and the poem The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov by Lermontov.
[1] He also designed theater posters and a popular series of postcards depicting old Russia, published by Maison Lapine of Paris.
Later, a limited edition gift album with photographs of the participants was published, with "donations" benefitting Russian troops in the Far East.
He became seriously ill not long after, and died while convalescing at the "Maison Russe", a retirement home for White émigrés just south of Paris.