What’s new
Dream on
8th July 2021
Time for a woman’s take on erotic fantasy, the twenty-two-year old Hungarian artist Margit Gaal’s 1920 Songes Galantes – Courageous Dreams. Dreams like these are worth having! See them now here.
The ultimate transgressions
7th July 2021
Experimenter, iconoclast, bon viveur (he has his own vineyard), and a wicked sense of humour – that’s today’s new artist, Eric Provoost. See his Bataille Histoire d l’oeil portfolio and his wonderful erotic alphabets here.
Exploring transgression
6th July 2021
Today’s new artist, Paris-based visionary Yves Milet-Desfougères, maybe requires a bit more visual attention than some, but his imaginative and detailed portfolios based on transgressive texts by Batailles and Sade are well worth the effort. See them here.
Hot nights, cold hearts …
5th July 2021
A French chambermaid’s explicit diary, or hot nights in the Caribbean? That’s what’s on offer from today’s new illustrator, Charles-Auguste Edelmann, who produced this art in the 1930s. You can read all about him and see his talented work here.
Endless pleasure
4th July 2021
A wonderful and colourful portfolio for you all today from the early 1940s, at the hand of that great artist Anon. The tile, Inlassablement (Tirelessly), says it all – non-stop pleasure. See it now here and be inspired!
What they got up to in fifteenth-century France
3rd July 2021
Today’s talented new artist is Clement Lapuszewski, who used the pseudonym ‘J Stall’ and is sometimes confused with André Collot. Sadly he only illustrated two books, but his witty eroticism is well worth spending some time with. See his work here.
Let the good times roll
2nd July 2021
An important new portfolio today from one of your favourite artists, Paul-Émile Bécat’s 1936 illustrations for Colette by the outrageous Johannès Gros. You want sexual experimentation, you have it! See them all now here, and get experimenting!
Sex with a smile
27th June 2021
Some light relief from today’s new artist, the 1930s Czech humourist Jaroslav Štika. A little dated yes, but my goodness he could draw! We could do with more of this kind of humour today, a challenge for the artists among you … See his work here.
How we lived and loved then …
25th June 2021
A treat from the 1950s today, an amateur album of twenty-two drawings by an amateur but talented hand, fulfilling every fantasy that an early-fifties imagination could desire. They all look so clean-cut and happy! Enjoy them now here.
Choose your sin …
24th June 2021
Do you scintillate, or can you keep up the sinning till after midnight? Today’s new artist, like many of the era, made the most of illustrating the seven deadlies – sloth, pride, lust, gluttony, avarice, envy and anger. See Adolphe Willette’s 1919 cardinal sins 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.