What’s new
Zodiac
20th July 2026
We’ve waited for five years to find Monica Guevara’s 1996 Erotic Zodiac portfolio, and then a generous follower told us that he’d just acquired a complete set – so now we can share them with you all. See them now by clicking here. Thank you JB!
The cream of art deco
17th July 2026
Joseph Kuhn-Régnier only produced three major illustration portfolios, and all in the space of the early 1930s. But what triumphs they are – Bilitis, Praxagora, and the complete medical treatises of Hippocrates. You can see all three now by clicking here. What a treat!
Helping to find your way around
16th July 2026
You asked for it, we’ve done it – all the artists on the site now have a set of ‘Similar artists’ links at the end of their biography, so whether it’s bookplate artists, spanking artists, gay artists, whatever, you can cruise easily from artist to similar artist. Have fun!
Hans-Jürgen Döpp – a tribute
15th July 2026
Hans-Jürgen Döpp (3 May 1940–30 January 2025) – the collector who shared a hidden history of desireSome figures shape a field not by standing at its centre, but by preserving, interpreting and sharing what others overlook. Hans-Jürgen Döpp, who died last year at the age of 84, was one such figure… read more
Carmen
14th July 2026
Today we bring you Jean Traynier’s 1943 illustrations for Prosper Mérimée’s famous tale of the beautiful and fiercely independent Carmen, the woman who values personal freedom above all else. See Traynier’s interpretation of this famous story now by clicking here.
The difficult mirror
13th July 2026
At a time of growing concern about online child safety, we are very aware of how we handle the sensitive subject of depictions of children in art, especially ‘erotic art’. We have added an important Themes and Topics article – The difficult mirror: artists, childhood, and the challenge of looking – here. Read it and see what you think.
The difficult mirror
12th July 2026
Artists, childhood, and the challenge of lookingWhat do the honesterotica-featured artists Balthus, Trevor Brown, Nicole Claveloux, Silvio Cadelo, Lena Cronqvist, Edgar Degas, Albert Dubout, Leonor Fini, gea*, Gustav Klimt, Jim Herbert, Charles Laborde, Stu Mead, Rojan, Egon Schiele, Joaquín… read more
We lied!
11th July 2026
For some time we’ve been saying ‘Join the 700k+ visitors who have enjoyed the site'. But it’s actually many more than that now – Google Analytics tell us that ‘A total of 1,261,797 different people have visited your website between 1 January 2020 and 10 July 2026. Looking at the past year, your monthly active user count peaked in December 2025 with 37,344 users. Over the last twelve months you've maintained a steady average of 32,670 active users per month.’ Wow! Thank you all. Just keep coming back regularly (and tell all your friends what a treasure trove you’ve discovered).
Nun but the best?
10th July 2026
A new contribution today from the great Anon, a set of 1932 German prints to accompany Pietro Aretino’s 1543 Conversations, specifically the one about the downsides of becoming a nun. You can see Die sündigen Klosterschwestern (The Sinful Nuns) now by clicking here (but we blame the friars).
Damned
8th July 2026
Today’s new artist is the French illustrator Pierre Adrien Ekman, with his dark 1947 series to accompany Baudelaire’s infamous Pièces Condamnées (The Condemned Poems), written in 1857 but banned for nearly a century. Read about Ekman by clicking here, and see the portfolio here.
Important recent updates
✨ Illustrator and portfolio lists
One of the most common requests we get (and the responses to the recent questionnaire confirm this) is that it would be really useful to have complete listings of all the artists and portfolios on the website – as of May 2026 728 artists and 2,003 portfolios!
So we’ve listened and heard … and by following this link you will find files with these listings in alphabetical order (and where there are several portfolios with the same name their artists will be in order too). The lists are in PDF format, so you can download, save and search them. They duplicate what you can already find in the artist and portfolio listings on the website, but if you’re really into erotic art and illustration and would like a quick ready reference, you should find these invaluable. Enjoy!
✨ Helping you to find your way around
You asked for it, we’ve done it – all the artists on the site now have a set of ‘Similar artists’ links at the end of their biography, so whether it’s bookplate artists, spanking artists, gay artists, whatever, you can cruise easily from artist to similar artist. Have fun!
✨ Hans-Jürgen Döpp, 1940–2025
Few people have shared their wisdom, experience – and wonderful collection of erotic art – more than Hans-Jürgen Döpp, who sadly died last year at the age of 84. For more than half a century Hans-Jürgen devoted himself to the study and collection of erotic art, not as a marginal curiosity or a private indulgence, but as an essential part of human culture. Through his work as a scholar, teacher, curator, author and collector, he helped establish erotic art as a serious field of artistic and historical enquiry. He was an enthusiastic supporter of honesterotica, sharing more than 200 of his portfolios with us, helping to make the website a unique resource of erotic art that would otherwise have been lost to the world. Read our tribute to Hans-Jürgen here.
✨ The difficult mirror
Artists, childhood, and the challenge of looking
At a time of growing concern about online child safety, we are very aware of how we handle the sensitive subject of depictions of children in art, especially ‘erotic art’. We have added an important Themes and Topics article here, which helps explore how artists over time have depicted naked children, and why it is as important to think seriously about what art is for and how we look at and experience it as about what is actually being depicted. Read the piece and see what you think.