What’s new
Birthday Blog Part 2
17th March 2022
Here is the second instalment of contributions to our request to our followers to let us know what sort of erotic art works best for them. Another thoughtful and illuminating set of responses, including two contributors who, as artists themselves, recognise that much inspiration can be gained from… read more
Free love 1950s style
17th March 2022
Paul Verlaine’s sexy poem cycle Œuvres Libres has been illustrated many times – today we have a new portfolio from around 1950 by the prolific artist Anon, and quite a good Anon in this case! See this explicit portfolio now by clicking here (and enjoy the sonnet!).
A hippy ahead of his time
16th March 2022
Today’s new artist is the early twentieth century German Hugo Höppener, better known as Fidus (The Faithful One), with his optimistic free-thinking view of the erotic links between the naked body and the elements of nature. Naive or visionary? You decide – see his work now by clicking here.
The complex simplicity of erotic art
15th March 2022
A highly original and fascinating new artist for you today from honesterotica, the inventive Polish painter Jan Dobkowski. As well as his trademark red-and-green paintings, we have a wonderful selection of his erotic drawings and other work – all by clicking here.
Birthday Blog Part 1
11th March 2022
Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday to us! Happy birthday dear honesterotica, happy birthday to us!To celebrate our first five years we asked you, our wonderful followers and visitors, to tell us something about what sort of erotic art and illustrations works best for you, and why it is… read more
Sacred and profane
10th March 2022
A wonderful and highly original artist for you today, introducing the colourful wit and imagination of the French artist Clovis Trouille. As well as creating the perfect bottom for Oh Calcutta, the variety of his work will astonish you! See it all now by clicking here.
Get thee to a nunnery
8th March 2022
A young girl forced into a nunnery against her will, then shamed and abused – that’s Diderot’s La Religieuse, illustrated in 1916 by one of our favourite artists, Martin van Maële, and newly added today. See the whole portfolio now by clicking here.
Ménage à trois
6th March 2022
The talented and stylish Jean-Gabriel Daragnès is one of our all-time favourite illustrators, and today we are delighted to bring you what is considered his best work, the plates for the classic threesome romp Gamiani by Alfred de Musset. See them all now by clicking here.
Stages of love …
5th March 2022
A relatively minor but nonetheless interesting new artist for you today, the French illustrator Georges Conrad, with drawings from his sketchbook and the 1935 plates for his only explicitly erotic commission, My Stages of Love. See his work now by clicking here.
An early spanking endeavour
28th February 2022
A strange hybrid on offer today, the French Symbolist artist Henri Caruchet’s 1904 illustrations for Parisienne et Peaux-rouges (Parisiennes and Redskins), the ‘red skin’ being early clickbait for these flagellation narratives. See Caruchet’s work 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.