What’s new
Space age heroine
11th January 2023
Hands up if you remember Jane Fonda in the 1967 movie Barbarella. Not so many of us now, but Jean-Claude Forest’s sexy heroine was dynamite at the time, an emancipated woman who loved sex, even with robots. See Barbarella – and the darker Louise Rose – now by clicking here.
Mansex
8th January 2023
Time for some male gay sex today, with the Italian artist Lorenzo Ridolfi. A distinctive style, a rather single-minded concentration on idealised intimacy, but very popular in the appropriate circles! See his work now by clicking here.
Help needed with Federico Righi …
7th January 2023
We’re looking for help again ... We’d like to add the Italian artist Federico Righi’s wonderful 1970 portfolio, Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, but don’t have a complete set of the 27 prints. Can any of you wonderful followers help? Please email us if you have any leads – [email protected].
The case of the disappearing illustrator
7th January 2023
Who was Renée Ringel, illustrator of two dozen books in the 1940s and 50s? We have found nothing at all about this mystery woman, but today bring you four of her sweet, gently titillating portfolios, all to be seen by clicking here. Can you help solve the enigma?
This strange thing called sex
3rd January 2023
The first new artist of 2023 is the radical Russian cartoonist Mikhail Zlatkovsky, with his witty and acerbic take on the strange ways in which humans participate in sex. See his wonderful work now by clicking here, and the best possible new year to you all!
Every which way
27th December 2022
There’s nothing like a bit of self-promotion, and today’s new artist, Jean-Frédéric Maximilien de Waldeck, was brilliant at it. In 1856 he shocked Paris with his ‘discovery’ of Raimondi’s lost ‘sexual positions’ classical drawings – now you can see them all by clicking here (and may you too live to be 109!).
Ho ho ho!
25th December 2022
Wishing everyone a content and peaceful midwinter holiday, with just the right balance of excitement and relaxation. Thank you all for your continuing support! With love and kisses from Rosie (painting by Kirill Fadeyev, our newest addition).
Hope and glory
23rd December 2022
It feels particularly appropriate to introduce today’s new artist, the talented and creative Ukrainian Kirill Fadeyev, imagining a world of beauty and pleasure. See his work now by clicking here, and share his vision.
A mystery artist – can you help?
16th December 2022
‘Renée Ringel’ is a French artist who illustrated several erotic titles in the 1940s and 50s, including Ovid, Boccaccio and the Claudine novels. It’s clearly the pseudonym of a reasonably talented artist, but beyond that we know nothing ... do you? All leads and ideas gratefully received.
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.