What’s new
What a piece of work …
13th December 2021
Who here remembers the time of Timothy Leary, LSD, the Oz trial, and the musical Hair? If so, the work of today’s new artist, Raymond Bertrand, will take you straight back to 1970 to revel in his psychedelic fantasies. See his drawings and long hair now by clicking here.
Bones, muscles, skin, hair …
8th December 2021
Today’s offering is the Californian artist Phillip Dvorak, with his forensic exploration of nakedness. As one reviewer writes, ‘Dvorak's explorations are rooted in the erotic, subconscious and emotional possibilities of the human body’. See his work now by clicking here.
Polymorphous perversity
5th December 2021
Today we have for you in the German artist Johannes Spehr a provocative and fearless explorer of the dark recesses of how human beings interact with each other. Be prepared to be shocked and left wondering with his Bataille illustrations, which you can see here.
Client shaming
3rd December 2021
The witty and wonderful contemporary Russian artist Eugene Drabkin is today’s new offering for you all. See his shameless Poems about Sluts and daring Cheats and Cribs now by clicking here. If you don’t smile there must be something seriously wrong with you …
Keeping the freedom flag flying
29th November 2021
A really important new artist for you today, the original and imaginative Russian artist Valentin Yustitsky, who in 1937 was transported to the Gulag by the Soviets for his liberal ideas. But what joy and freedom in his drawings, which you can see now by clicking here.
Caroline Coon, the great offender
28th November 2021
It wasn’t until she was 73 that Caroline Coon was given her first solo exhibition – its title, ‘The Great Offender’, explaining why this iconoclastic artist is less well known than she deserves to be. Now we can share an inspiring selection of her work here.
Wild sex
27th November 2021
We’ve just added Tavy Notton’s powerful illustrations for Rimbaud’s explicit sonnet cycle Les Stupra, so now we have all three of Notton’s erotic commissions it’s a good time to reacquaint yourself with his amazing etchings. See them all now at by clicking here.
Persian pleasures
26th November 2021
‘A jug of wine, a loaf of bread – and thou’ – the best-known line from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, lovingly and erotically illustrated in 1920s flapper style by today’s new artist, Ronald Balfour. Read about him and his work here, and enjoy that wine!
No greater love hath any woman
25th November 2021
With great thanks to a specialist bookshop friend, we are at last able to offer you all the complete series from Mariette Lydis’s groundbreaking lesbian-themed portfolio Sappho from 1933. Tender, sensual, accomplished – see them now by clicking here.
Why should not young men be gay?
24th November 2021
Gay fantasies don’t come much gayer than those of Ed Cervone, ‘Ed of Manhattan’, who during the 1980s and 90s produced dozens of drawings and paintings featuring young men with six-pack chests, tight buttocks, and mightily swelling cocks. See them 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.