What’s new
Scarlet women
2nd April 2026
Today’s new artist, Árpád Elfer, was better known as a graphic designer than as an illustrator, but in 1963 he provided an innovative set of drawings for the imaginative erotic story sequence Les Écarlates (The Scarlet Ones). You can read about Elfer by clicking here, and see the Les Écarlates drawings here.
Shame, dishonour and treachery?
31st March 2026
The fifteenth-century French poet François Villon was a vagabond and petty criminal who spent time in prison and came close to the gallows. He wrote about his experiences in witty verses, equally wittily illustrated by the great Sylvain Sauvage. See the Sauvage prints now by clicking here.
Naughty postcards
27th March 2026
Ten years after Albert Dubout died the postcard publisher Mourlot produced two sets of his most overtly erotic drawings. They are vanishingly rare, but today we are happy to show them all to you – just click here. Very naughty, and some a little questionable …
Just fabulous
25th March 2026
In the work of today’s new artist, the Mexican Héctor Pineda, eroticism is embedded within the cycle of decay and regeneration. Vulvas open into star fields, ribcages transform into cathedrals, faces dissolve into biomorphic ornament. The grotesque and the delicate coexist. See his remarkable drawings and paintings now by clicking here.
The joys of marriage
21st March 2026
What do you think of marriage? A celebration of true lasting love or a lifelong penance? Have a look at our new 1947 portfolio by Jean Traynier illustrating the medieval satire The Fifteen Joys of Marriage, arguably the artist’s best erotic work. Click here and see if it helps you make up your mind …
A gay life
19th March 2026
Among collectors of homoerotic art from the 1950s, one artist stands out, the troubled, talented and imaginative René Bolliger, who is today’s new artist. Take your time with each of his portfolios – Narcisse, Jésus-la-Caille, Tiresias, Querelle de Brest – by clicking here.
Skin in the game
16th March 2026
Today’s new artist, Stephen Early, is known for his unapologetically erotic, classically grounded depictions of the naked body. His paintings affirm that queer eroticism can be thought-provoking and tender without surrendering its power to arouse or to unsettle. See his work now by clicking here.
Oh the joy!
14th March 2026
Today’s new artist, John Raynes, is best known as a Cornish landscape painter and author of books on figure drawing, but in the 1990s he also created illustrations for two important sex manuals, The New Joy of Sex and The Good Sex Book. You can now see them all now by clicking here and remember how exciting pre-internet sex seemed!
The absent image: where has lesbian intimacy gone?
11th March 2026
In 1925 the Danish artist Gerda Wegener, now living in Paris, created a series of twelve coloured pochoir plates titled Les délassements de l’Éros (The Amusements of Eros), created in collaboration with Louis Perceau, a French poet and connoisseur of erotica. The plates depict women in close,… read moreImportant 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.