What’s new
A new world
6th July 2026
A new art deco portfolio today from the master of the style Umberto Brunelleschi – his 1948 plates for an edition of Voltaire’s L’Ingénu, about a young American native girl transplanted to eighteenth century France. Painted just a year before Brunelleschi died, see his swan song now by clicking here.
Greek style
1st July 2026
Today’s new artist is the multi-talented Greek painter Rena Tzolakis, with two very different portfolios – limpid watercolours for Les Fleurs du Mal, and stylish rococo wood engravings for La Belle Allemande. See Tzolakis’s work now by clicking here.
A sixteenth-century lesbian poem that has never been illustrated
27th June 2026
The earliest poem in English about love between women has been sitting in John Donne’s collected works for four centuries, yet almost nobody seems to know that it exists. It’s intimate, emotionally direct, surprisingly explicit, and unlike almost anything else written in English at the time. And,… read more
Intimate advice
15th June 2026
Clitandre comes to Cidalise’s chamber to discuss his relationship problems; she is surprised by his arrival, but quickly warms to the subject as she is having similar issues. See Antoine Calbet’s 1935 illustrations to this eighteenth-century romp, La Nuit et le Moment, by clicking here.
Touchet!
13th June 2026
Today we bring you Jacques Touchet’s best portfolio, his 1941 illustrations for the tales of La Fontaine. Okay, not so much naked flesh this time round, but what amazing colours and great compositions! See them all now by clicking here.
How to whore
9th June 2026
Today’s collection of Picasso erotic drawings was used in 1962 to illustrate a new edition of Lucian’s second-century instruction manual Mimes des Courtisanes (Dialogues of the Courtesans). It includes both the neoclassical linearity of his 1920s work and the freer line of later decades – you can see them all now by clicking 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.