What’s new
Small is beautiful
21st November 2025
Today’s new artist, Henry Lemarié, is considered one of the great masters of French miniaturism in the mid-twentieth century, and you can see his work by clicking here. Make sure you explore both his Villon and his La Fontaine illustrations – enjoy the wonderful detail!
Power and vulnerability
19th November 2025
In the paintings of today’s new artist, Shozo Nagano, we see him embracing vulnerability through the prism of glorified male bodies, their physical strength and masculine beauty hinting at emotional vulnerability and a sense of danger. See his work now by clicking here.
Art as emotional honesty
16th November 2025
Today we bring you the unmistakable and deeply personal work of the British artist Tracey Emin, she of The Tent and The Bed. Emin completely redefines what is meant by ‘the erotic’. See a great collection of her drawings and paintings now by clicking here.
Clerical errors?
14th November 2025
In pre-revolutionary France it was considered fair game to portray friars and nuns enjoying flouting their supposed vows of chastity. The coloured plates in this 1788 volume of tales of intrigue are as explicit as they come, and you can see them all by clicking here.
Hot or not?
11th November 2025
How hot does hot sex have to be to be worthy of the epithet? We’ll leave you to decide with today’s new artist, Benjamin Wachenje, whose bold colourful artworks are at least titillating. But actually ‘hot’? See for yourself by clicking here.
In stitches
8th November 2025
Today’s new artist is the inventive embroiderer Nicole Mazza from Buenos Aires, with her explicitly sexualised imagery exploring the way society constructs – and deconstructs – us. See a great collection of her remarkable needlework now by clicking here.
Queer Words
5th November 2025
Something a bit different for you all today – California artist Katie Gilmartin’s witty collection of Queer Words. What do TV, Bottom, Closet and Cruising mean to you? See Katie’s whole portfolio now by clicking here.
Dark and sensual …
31st October 2025
Today’s new artist is the French painter and engraver Pierre Combet-Descombes, with his powerful set of monotype engravings entitled Images pour un Baudelaire, inspired by that writer’s Les Fleurs du Mal. The dark, sensual imagery captures precisely that erotic mystery encapsulated by the poems. See them all now by clicking here.
The real deal
18th October 2025
Since its first publication in 1996, The Guide to Getting It On by American psychanalyst Paul Joannides has consistently been considered by far the best available guide to real, enjoyable sex. Joannides asked the brilliant comic artist Dærick Gröss, to produce the illustrations, all of which you can see both in line and in colour, by clicking here.
Classic erotica
11th October 2025
Vienna-born American Franz Felix only illustrated two erotic works – Pierre Louÿs’ Songs of Bilitis in 1928 and E. Powys Mathers’ anthology Eastern Love in 1930, but his stylish plates are a model of composition and the gently suggestive. See them all 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.