What’s new
Power and tenderness
25th July 2022
The wonderful Russian artist Vyacheslav Mikhailov is today’s new addition to the site, with his powerful textural canvases and his beautifully tender etchings of an older artist engaging respectfully with his Rubenesque models. See his work now by clicking here.
A Soviet erotic alphabet
23rd July 2022
A new erotic alphabet today, from the unlikely hand of the Soviet-era monumental sculptor Sergei Dmitrievich Merkurov. Imaginative and colourful, you can learn your Cyrillic alphabet at the same time as enjoying the art – click here to see the whole portfolio.
Pussy v Penis
22nd July 2022
Some light-hearted fun for everyone today, as a band of naked teenage girls challenge – and mostly win out – against a barrage of marauding phalli. Witty and imaginative, see the results of KiKo’s drawing skills by clicking here.
Sex is fun!
21st July 2022
Some gentle erotic delights today from Polish artist and graphic designer Lucjan Jagodziński, better known for his film posters. As far as we know his only risqué work, see them all now by clicking here.
Real naked people …
20th July 2022
We have had Riccardo Mannelli’s paintings on the site for a while, but we have now added a large portfolio of his drawings, all in his inimitable style, making us think hard about what makes bodies, especially naked ones, so infinitely fascinating. See them all by clicking here.
Drawn into darkness
19th July 2022
If you like the dark borders between sexuality and the occult, you’ll love the work of the Chilean artist Cristóbal López, better known to his followers as Kerbcrawlerghost. Today we bring you his best work, from the pages of Drawn into Darkness – to see them all just click here.
Queer as they come
16th July 2022
Today we bring you the sensuous, colourful world of a talented queer Polish artist, Juliusz Lewandowski. Honest and tender, inventive and questioning, his work cannot fail to make you smile – and to think carefully about gender. See his paintings now by clicking here.
Well hello, sailor!
15th July 2022
With the help of one of our lovely American followers, we have now been able to source all 29 Jean Cocteau illustrations for the 1947 edition of Genet’s Querelle de Brest, plus many related drawings. You can see all of Cocteau’s shamelessly gay fantasies by clicking here.
No holds barred
13th July 2022
Addiction, longing, desire, loneliness, violence and sexuality are the themes of German artist Otto Lackenmacher’s etchings and paintings. Especially sexuality! See this original and highly talented artist’s work now by clicking here, and be inspired.
Ex libris eroticis
8th July 2022
Ex libris or bookplates are eagerly sought by collectors, and in recent years there has been a definite trend towards erotic subjects. Today’s new artist, Cornelis Labots, was brilliant at portraying the naked body in woodcut; see his ex libris 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.