What’s new
The innocent mid-1950s
1st August 2021
Head for Anon 1950s today, where there are three new portfolios, two by the same artist as Ambre la précoce (Moineau de Paris and Les débordements de Michou), and a charming colourful series called L’amour à plusieurs – enough love for everyone! Click here and explore …
Maurice de Becque
31st July 2021
Today’s new artist is Maurice de Becque, a highly-talented engraver and illustrator, who took enormous pains to produce highly-detailed work. Take your time to explore his wonderful portfolios here.
Coming of age
30th July 2021
A rather strange and rare oddity of clandestine 1950s publishing today, the set-piece semi-photographic images from a text about the exploits of a group of proto-teenagers. See Ambre la Précoce now by clicking here. Was it like this for you?
The happy life
30th July 2021
An important new artist today – Henry Monnier, the French equivalent of Cruikshank and Rowlandson, working in the 1820s on delicately-coloured engravings showing that sexual exploration was just as much on people’s minds then as now. Enjoy his work by clicking here.
Kitsch or cool?
26th July 2021
Some people like his work, others think he’s just borderline-porn kitsch. We tend towards the latter, but the jury is out, and we’ve just added three more portfolios for Édouard Chimot which you can see here. Let us know what you think.
The ultimate Paris-noir
24th July 2021
With the help of a Russian friend, we have now added all of Nicole Claveloux’s wonderful dark illustrations for Confessions d’un monte-a-l’aire. What an artist, what imagination! See them all here and marvel.
Clitoris incarnadine
17th July 2021
Clitoris empourprés, what a lovely description. If you’re fortunate enough to have – or be acquainted with – an encrimson’d, roseate, incarnadine pearl of female passion, you’ll appreciate today’s new offering – see it here.
The quintessential threesome
16th July 2021
A new portfolio today from one of your favourite illustrators, André Collot – his 1933 suite for Musset’s Gamiani, one of the all-time classics of erotic literature. See them now here. Enjoy!
The power of sex
10th July 2021
Today’s new artist is the Russian-raised Frankfurt-based illustrator Alexander Pavlenko, with his powerful interpretations of Sade and his witty observations on exhibitionism. An imaginative talent worth keeping track of, you can see his erotic work here.
Formidable Russian talent
9th July 2021
Not many people know that the pioneering Russian film-maker Sergei Eisenstein – he of Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky – also produced more than 5,000 erotic drawings, displaying skill, imagination and humour. See a great selection of 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.