What’s new
Doomed lovers
23rd November 2021
Possibly the most stylish illustrations ever to accompany Baudelaire’s famous Les Fleurs du Mal (The Flowers of Evil), Émile Bracquemond’s powerful 1946 woodcuts for the lesbian-themed poem Femmes Damnées (Accursed Women) are now on our website here. Enjoy.
Memoirs of a woman of pleasure
22nd November 2021
Possibly the best-known work of erotic fiction, John Cleland’s Fanny Hill, was first published in London in 1748. Today’s new artist, Sophie Busson, was commissioned to create a new set of illustrations for a 1980 French edition; you can see them now by clicking here.
Smitten by song
21st November 2021
A new portfolio today from one of your favourite illustrators, Berthomme Saint-André – his 1933 prints for the erotic memoires of a German opera singer, based on the legendary Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient who seduced Beethoven and Wagner. See it now by clicking here.
What gender are you?
18th November 2021
Today’s new artist, Brooklyn-based Geoffrey Chadsey, is one of the few to engage fully with the vagaries and varieties of sexual identity. His multiple figures often shift between genders and even species. See his exciting work now by clicking here.
The graphic and versatile Dignimont
17th November 2021
A really important new artist for you all today, the talented Parisian illustrator André Dignimont, with no fewer than seven of his portfolios from the mid-1920s to the late 40s. Enjoy Maison Philibert, Gamiani, Verlaine and much more to be found here.
Dreams or nightmares?
16th November 2021
The prolific and thought-provoking Canadian artist Claude Bolduc is today’s new artist, with his disturbing paintings and drawings in which strange beings interact in a sensual and vivid dreamlike reverie. Not to everyone’s taste – see his work here and make your up own mind.
Sharing Paradise
15th November 2021
If you’ve wondered what the Garden of Eden was really like, wonder no longer. Today’s imaginative new portfolio from 1910 proves Eve and Adam were having a great time experimenting with each other and the rest of creation – including the dinosaurs! Share their exploration by clicking here.
AirB&B with a difference!
13th November 2021
Fancy a house party with an erotic edge in a French château? Then you’ll love our new anonymous 1930s portfolio which you’ll find here, with fun and games for the whole extended family. Now go plan your own!
Sexual revolution 1848 style
12th November 2021
1848 was a year of revolution across Europe, and one anonymous German artist explored the ways in which political upheaval might also extend to the sexual realm. You can see the imaginative results in today’s new portfolio, Ausbrüche, 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.