What’s new
The search for beauty
11th July 2024
What a pleasure it is to bring you a new portfolio by the wonderful Kees van Dongen, his colourful 1955 illustrations for Voltaire's oriental romp The Princess of Babylon. Enjoy them all now by clicking here.
Quality graffiti
18th June 2024
Miss Van is probably the best-known street artist working today, her dreamy women with their animal masks, pastel colours, and revealing clothing seen regularly in exhibitions as well as painted on walls throughout Europe and America. See her work now by clicking here.
Shades of impropriety
13th June 2024
A new portfolio today from the master of etching Alméry Lobel-Riche, his 1945 illustrations for the Pierre Louÿs story collection Sanguines, stories predominantly concerned with sexual violence, or the threat of it. See the portfolio now by clicking here.
For adults only
9th June 2024
Today we have pleasure in bringing you the erotic work of Argentina’s best known cartoonist, Horacio Altuna. Talented, prolific, imaginative, see a great selection of his witty and provocative work for Playboy now by clicking here.
Imagined encounters
6th June 2024
It’s always a pleasure to add a new portfolio from that master of art deco George Barbier, and today we bring you his wonderful illustrations for a 1929 edition of Marcel Schwob’s Imaginary Lives. Princesses, poets, pirates and more, see them all by clicking here.
Everything everywhere
29th May 2024
How much sex is it possible to include in one drawing? Today’s new portfolio from the early 1940s, Group Love, does its level best! From the courtroom to the dental surgery, there’s nowhere off-limits to the rampant phallus. See everything now by clicking here.
Alternative mythologies
25th May 2024
Classical, transgressive, often controversial – this is today’s new artist, Lisbon-based Barahona Possollo. His almost photo-realistic canvases explore our understanding of what we mean by ‘art’ and what we think is ‘acceptable’ – see his work now by clicking here.
Fit for a queen
23rd May 2024
Chéri Hérouard is best known for his spanking illustrations, but he was also a talented colourist for more conventional erotic classics. Today we bring you all 64 plates from the Queen of Navarre’s renaissance epic the Heptameron – see them now by clicking here.
A man’s man
21st May 2024
Today’s new artist, Paris-based Benoît Prévot, is best known for his period-style homoerotic artwork, skilfully capturing the style and atmosphere of illustrations produced in the 1920s but with a very explicit twist. See Benoît’s work now by clicking here.
Strange beauty
13th May 2024
His bizarre naked creatures penetrate our consciousness and make us think about something otherworldly, mystical, leading to reflections on the true nature of beauty. This is today’s new artist, Ukrainian Konstantin Antioukhin. See his remarkable etchings 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.