What’s new
Spanking new illustrations by, err, who ... ?
4th April 2021
A real treat for all you lovers of illustrated 1920s flagellation classics – no fewer than five spanking new portfolios from the hand of the pseudonymous artist Gaston Smit (or is it Topfer, or Barclay?). Whatever, they are on the website now, see them here. Enjoy!
Dangerous women
3rd April 2021
An important new portfolio today from one of your favourite artists, Alméry Lobel-Riche – all the illustrations from the powerful 1910 edition of Les Diaboliques (The She-Devils), Barbey d’Aurevilly’s stories of female revenge. They’re on the website now; see them here.
Male magnificence!
2nd April 2021
It isn’t often that a woman chooses to concentrate on drawing naked men, even rarer for her to emphasise the bits that appear to interest her the most, their wondrous cocks and balls. So here are Patricia Boulay’s brightly-coloured works. Enjoy!
Rewriting history
31st March 2021
So it was Eve that had all the fun! Poor Adam. Today’s new artist, Leo Impekoven, was a brilliant designer and had a fertile imagination – see his version of the creation story here, and understand why patriarchy is doomed!
All About Love?
30th March 2021
We’ve just added all the missing images to the 1925 ‘Eugène Reunier’ (Carl Breuer-Courth) portfolio, Autour de l’amour (All About Love), so it’s now complete – see them all here. Have fun!
The arbitrariness of pornography laws
29th March 2021
The maverick Austrian artist and sculptor Alfred Hrdlicka was preoccupied with history, politics and personal freedom, and his 1973 Wiener Blut portfolio makes it clear what he thought of the Austrian pornography laws! See it here now.
The battle between lust and ‘polite society’
27th March 2021
Today’s new artist is the Austrian Alwine Hotter, who during her long life produced many sensitive portraits and a telling cycle of linocuts depicting the sordid underside of polite Austrian society. See her bold work here.
Poverty and necessity in 1920s Berlin
23rd March 2021
Heinrich Zille’s 1921 Hurengespräche (Whore Talk) is a classic of working-class urban poverty, complete with his trademark sketches of working women and their clients. Sadly unavailable in English, you can still see his telling images here.
An imaginative 1920s German phallic homage
22nd March 2021
Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens was one of the leading lights of the German secession style between 1900 and 1918, mirroring in Germany the aims and aspirations of the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He only made one erotic portfolio, which you can see here.
The artist’s response to their ‘real world’
18th March 2021
Marcos Carrasquer is an artist who will make you think, look again, question – exactly what an artist should do! See his work, including his disturbing illustrations for Bataille’s The Story of the Eye, 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.