Histoires intimes (Intimate Stories) is Simon Frankart’s first book, and a typical Frankart collaboration with his enormous base of followers. In 2018 he put a call out via his Instagram account for short shareable accounts from people’s intimate lives which he could illustrate. Out of more than 900 submissions he chose fifty, which are told together with trademark Petites Luxures drawings in this small red-cloth-bound hardback volume.

Here are the pictures, but for the stories that go with them you will need to buy the book. Originally published in French by Hoëbeke, it is also now available in English (published by Lanoo), Italian (L’ippocampo), Spanish (Lunwerg) and Dutch (Lannoo).

Simon Frankart’s second book, also published by Hoëbeke, was published in 2020. It is called Le diascope, and uses a Victorian paper-folding technique to create twenty-five three-dimensional circle-framed scenes, including erotic subjects seen through portholes, camera lenses, mirrors and crystal balls. There are no words, so the production is truly international, leaving everything to the imagination.

Having said that there would never be a second volume of Histoires intimes, in 2021 a call went out for submissions for a new project called Lettre aimeé (Love Letter), which will again be published by Hoëbeke (they know a good thing when they see it). The new book, like Histoires intimes, will contain fifty texts along with Simon Frankart’s text-inspired drawings.