The early 1970s were a time of sexual awakening, when hippydom, contraception and relative innocence combined to encourage fantasies like that of the young Stholl, for whom lesbian love was clearly a major preoccupation.

The extended flowery introduction to this collection of drawings, written by publisher and literary critic Jacques Chambon (1942–2003), tells us all we need to know about Stholl’s fantasy world: ‘The story of Jean-Pierre Stholl is simple: it is that of a gifted young man fascinated by a fabulous procession of lesbians in full bloom. Like their creator, the Stholl’s lesbians have no time to waste. They do not wait to come completely into the world in order to love each other. Barely emerging from their vegetable matrix or from the enormous eggs in the shelter of which the instruments of their function have been polished to perfection, they throw themselves on each other. And do not count on them to have the modesty of virginity or the hesitation of inexperience. Half-covered with the placenta of fruits, flowers, leaves and branches, helmeted or caparisoned with fragments of shells, instinctive warriors in love, they find the necessary gestures and appropriate embraces as surely as the newborn’s thumb finds its mouth. Eyes closed, they focus on their pleasure to precipitate its culmination. And when they open their mouths to show their lovely teeth, it is as much to catch their breath as to yell at the poor voyeur – we are disturbing them, we are making them lose precious moments.’

Another period feature of this collection is the prominent use of spot colour – green and magenta – in many of the drawings. The volume also includes four of Stholl’s paintings, rather poorly reproduced.

Jean-Pierre Stholl’s Dessins érotiques was published by Eric Losfeld in a limited numbered edition of 1,500 copies.