800 artists – but without you, how many more?

honesterotica has reached another important milestone – the website has just surpassed 800 artists, with more than 120,000 illustrations, paintings, drawings, prints and other works to explore.

This represents years of research, collecting, writing, scanning, cataloguing and web development. The artists range from familiar names in art history to illustrators, cartoonists and contemporary artists whose work deserves a wider audience. Some are extensively documented elsewhere; others are little known, and their work can be difficult or impossible to find elsewhere.

Our aim is to bring this material together and make it freely accessible, encouraging people to explore the extraordinary variety of ways artists have represented the human form, sexuality and erotic experience. honesterotica is much more than a collection of images. Its biographies, portfolio texts and historical information help tell the stories of the artists and the circumstances in which their work was made.

800 artists is a milestone, not an end point. There are more artists to discover, portfolios to develop, texts to research, and existing entries to improve. We want the site to keep growing, and to remain a resource that anyone can explore without a subscription or paywall.

Reaching 800 artists is something we can all be proud of, so thank you to everyone who has helped us get here. honesterotica exists because people care about this work, and without you there would be no honesterotica.

honesterotica is a non-commercial, free-to-use project, and we intend to keep it that way. The research, writing, image preparation and editorial work are all done voluntarily, but keeping the website running has real costs. For 2026–27, we need to raise around £1,900 to cover our annual hosting costs (£1,000), other web services (£300) and external technical maintenance (£600). These are the essential costs of keeping the site online and working properly. Everything else is contributed freely.

So, just as we did when we reached 600 and 700 artists, we’re asking for your support once again. On both previous occasions, you responded generously. In the same spirit as appeals made by Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg, we’re again inviting our community to help meet the ongoing costs of maintaining this valuable free online resource.

We have a community of 12,850 followers on X and 4,750 on Bluesky, as well as the people who visit the website directly. We know that follower numbers don’t necessarily tell us how many people are actively engaged, and we certainly don’t expect everyone to contribute. But if even a small number of people who value the site made a donation, it would make a real difference.

To keep honesterotica going, please consider making a donation. £5 would be lovely. £20 would be wonderful. £50 would make us extremely happy. And if you feel you can afford to be more generous, we certainly won’t stop you! Every contribution helps meet the costs of keeping honesterotica freely available.

Just point your PayPal account at [email protected] and donate the amount you choose, selecting the appropriate payment option and adding a note such as ‘Donation from (your name/nickname)’. If you don’t use PayPal, email us at [email protected] and we can give you account details for a bank transfer.