What’s new
Naughty, but nice
19th March 2024
Today’s new artist is the French painter and printmaker Jules-Armand Hanriot, with his 1882 etchings for Charles Aubert’s racy series of novelettes Les Nouvelles Amoureuses (The New Lovers). Edgy then and rather sweet now, you can see them all by clicking here.
Lessons in love
17th March 2024
Specialist Paris publishers in the 1930s never missed an opportunity to pair a risqué text with a well-known artist, hence Umberto Brunelleschi’s colourful plates for René Boylesve’s Love Lesson in a Park, featuring as much naked female flesh as possible. See them all now by clicking here.
Small is (erotically) beautiful
10th March 2024
Another talented exponent of the miniature erotic engraving for you all today, the Russian-born Ukrainian artist Ruslan Agirba with his imaginative bookplates and related images, based on legend and folktale. See a wide selection of his work now by clicking here.
Paris, Japan
8th March 2024
For anyone who wasn’t already aware, there’s enormous interest in Japan in nostalgic erotic art, especially of the French variety, and the best exponent of the genre is today’s new artist, Alphonse Inoue (yes, he’s Japanese). See his wonderful work now by clicking here.
The devil’s work
7th March 2024
Another classic set of prints today – Martin van Maële’s 1917 etchings to accompany Baudelaire’s ground-breaking poetry cycle Les Fleurs du Mal, The Flowers of Evil. See them all now by clicking here.
The love of strong women …
6th March 2024
A small but powerful new portfolio for you all today, six etchings from 1927, almost certainly by the great Luc Lafnet, illustrating Paul Verlaine’s equally compelling poem cycle Femmes (Women). Miniature masterpieces! See them now by clicking here.
The bigger the better?
5th March 2024
Today’s new artist, New Yorker Ion Birch, certainly can’t be accused of understatement when it comes to sex. His exuberant scenes are full of massive cocks and magnificent vulvas, and you can see them all now by clicking here. Enjoy!
Planning to excite
3rd March 2024
Today’s new artist is another known much better for their other achievements, in this case the architect/planner Le Corbusier. But he was also a talented painter – and loved women. Hence his large, and largely unknown, output of erotic art. See it now by clicking here.
All you need is love
28th February 2024
Everyone will have heard of today’s new artist, though most will not have seen John Lennon’s complete 1970 print portfolio Bag One, celebrating his new-found sexual intimacy with Yoko Ono. See all of John’s erotic work now by clicking here.
Real or surreal?
19th February 2024
Scott G. Brooks’ work borders on the surreal, ranging from portraiture to complex narratives, incorporating historical and religious imagery with current social and political issues, and infusing them with a dark sense of humour. 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.