What’s new
Ex libris eroticus
18th February 2025
The engraved bookplate or ex libris is a favourite format for small erotic artworks, and today’s new artist, the Belgian Mark Severin, was probably the most important figure in the revival of the erotic engraved bookplate. See more than 150 of them now by clicking here.
La vie en rose
16th February 2025
It’s always a pleasure to bring you a new portfolio by one of our favourite artists, Paul-Émile Bécat, and today we have the 72 plates for a 1952 limited edition of the works of the eighteenth-century romantic playwright Marivaux, with just enough titillating décolletage to make everyone happy! See them all now by clicking here.
All in the detail
13th February 2025
The Slovak artist and printmaker Vladimir Gažovič has created works which are at the pinnacle of colour engraving, detailed, imaginative, full of erotic symbolism. He’s today’s new artist, and you can see a great selection of his work by clicking here.
Lesbian dreams
10th February 2025
Today we bring you Philippe Cavell’s 1981 futuristic lesbian fantasy Jessica Ligari, with elements of trans-sexuality, religion, psychedelic drugs, sex robots and online erotica which are way ahead of their time. Take your time with this one! Meet Jessica here.
Gay Japan
5th February 2025
The Japanese artist Go Hirano is regarded as a central figure in the first wave of gay art in Japan in the 1960s and 70s, his illustrations leaving a lasting impression on his contemporaries and those who followed in his footsteps. See his work now by clicking here.
Monky business
3rd February 2025
Today we bring you the earliest known erotic portfolio by the French illustrator Schem, aka Raoul Serres, his 1936 contributions to the Marquis de Sade’s story of the virtuous Justine at the hands of the lecherous monk Jérôme. See the whole series now by clicking here.
Try these for thighs …
1st February 2025
Meet ‘the Hofhuizen woman’ with today’s new artist, Willem Hofhuizen, who proves that being a devout Catholic doesn’t have to conflict with enjoying a shapely naked body or few. See this distinctive Dutch artist’s work now by clicking here.
Untouchables?
28th January 2025
One of our favourite artists is Kees van Dongen, and today we bring you one of his earliest portfolios, his colourful, over-the-top 1947 illustrations for Henri de Montherlant’s Les Lépreuses – The Lepers. See them all now by clicking here.
Disgusting!
24th January 2025
Fascinating, edgy, imaginative, hilarious, transgressive – welcome to gea*’s world of tiny girls, scary nurses and disturbing sexuality. She’s today’s new artist, and you can immerse yourself in her controversial, playful, hypersexualised world now by clicking here.
A very little French dressing
23rd January 2025
Today we bring you the work of the French illustrator Edmond Malassis, whose favourite subjects were ribald tales from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the more incidental nudity the better! See his work 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.