What’s new
The great honesterotica feedback questionnaire
22nd May 2026
The results are in! Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond, and in many cases in such detail. It really does give us a clear idea of who you are, how you use the website, what you like and value about it – and importantly how we can help make your experience of the site even better.… read more
Louÿs reimagined
21st May 2026
Today’s new artist is the French painter and graphic designer Jacques Daniel, who as the artistic director of the Club Français du Livre in the 1960s created distinctive portfolios for Pierre Louÿs’ Roi Pausole and Chansons de Bilitis. You can see them both now by clicking here.
Last chance for feedback!
19th May 2026
We’re into the final 24 hours for you to tell us your thoughts in the Great honesterotica Feedback Questionnaire … We’ll be analysing the results on Thursday 21st, and will share the results in a blog post. If you haven’t already responded click here now – it’s completely anonymous, and will only take ten minutes of your precious time. And if you have, THANK YOU!
Sister love
19th May 2026
We said we wouldn’t be adding any more Édouard Chimot, calling him a second-rate erotica factory. Then we found his earliest work from 1925, for Louÿs’ Chansons de Bilitis, with five striking extra plates. See them for yourself by clicking here, and see what you think.
Screwed
7th May 2026
Judith Bernstein, today’s new artist, has only recently become acknowledged as a fearless explorer of the links between sexual imagery and social behaviour. Screws, Dicks of Death, Birth of the Universe – you can see them all, and read about the artist, by clicking here.
We’re listening …
6th May 2026
A great response to our Great honesterotica Questionnaire so far! Thanks to all who have taken time to tell us what you think of the website and how you use it, what you find works for you and what doesn’t, and what you’d like to see more of. If you haven’t already participated, please PLEASE click here now to add your voice. It’s completely anonymous, and will only take ten minutes of your precious time. In another week or so we’ll collate all the feedback and give you an overview of what you all said. THANK YOU!
Illustrator and Portfolio Lists, November 2026
3rd May 2026
One of the most common requests we get is that it would be really useful to have complete listings of all the artists and portfolios on the website – as of November 2026 a remarkable 802 artists and 2,187 portfolios, by far the largest erotic art and illustration resource anywhere on the internet… read more
Sweet love …
3rd May 2026
Today’s new artist is Maurice Guy-Loë, and his charming 1925 suite of etchings to accompany Verlaine’s love poems: ‘They tell me that you are blonde/And that every blonde is treacherous/But your eyes are the loveliest in the world/And your breast is what I desire.’ See them now by clicking here.
2,000 portfolios (and a favour)
2nd May 2026
Honesterotica has just reached 2,000 portfolios! This represents many years of patient work – identifying artists, tracing editions, and cataloguing illustrators whose work has often been treated as marginal or simply overlooked. It also represents a community of readers – yes, you! – who have followed the project, contributed corrections and suggestions, and helped shape what the site has become.
To mark this milestone, we'd like to hear from you. We've put together a short feedback questionnaire – twenty-one questions, around five to ten minutes – covering how you use the site, what you find valuable, and what you'd like to see more of. All responses are anonymous, and thoughtful answers will count for far more than quick ones.
Your input will help guide the next phase of the site, including expanded illustrator coverage, deeper bibliographic content – and more honest erotica!
The link to the questionnaire is here.
Thank you all so much for being part of this pioneering project.
Important recent updates
✨ Illustrator and portfolio lists
One of the most common requests we get is that it would be really useful to have complete listings of all the artists and portfolios on the website – as of November 2026 a remarkable 802 artists and 2,187 portfolios, by far the largest erotic art and illustration resource anywhere on the internet.
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 are in alphabetical 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.