Offence: Indecent Cartoons By the Dutch Master Illustrator Peter Van Straaten

You will recognize a drawing by Peter van Straaten (1935 – 2016) out of thousands. His scratchy way of drawing and the careful background hatching made his work instantly recognizable. The drawings he made of relational problems in particular seem to be timeless, especially when they are accompanied by such a deadly ironic caption ('Of course you can… You have really nice knees.').

Fig.1. Peter van Straaten (self-portrait)

Thousands of Drawings

Peter van Straaten was a draftsman, cartoonist and writer. His work is popular and comprehensive: from political prints, cartoons and comics, plays, erotic drawings to many collections of prose. He died at the age of 81 on December 8, 2016 in Amsterdam. Peter van Straaten's career spans more than half a century, during which he made thousands of drawings for national and regional newspapers, weeklies and books, as well as theater and film posters. His work has been published many times in book form and every year, since 1994 until now, his drawings have been collected in Peter's Zeurkalender.

Honorary Doctorate

Van Straaten's work has received numerous awards. He received, among other things, the Golden Ganzenveer in 2006 and in 2010 he was awarded the Jacobus van Looy Prize, a prize for double talents. In 2011, Van Straaten received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for the striking way in which his cartoons provide insight into human behavior.

Fig.2. Transl. caption: "Next year we'll celebrate at your sister's, okay?"

Human Shortcomings

As a chronicler of daily life, Van Straaten had a keen eye for human shortcomings. This is also clearly visible in his erotic cartoons, which he classified as his 'free work'. He usually put them on paper in one go, without corrections. While some are drawn with an eye for eroticism, the bed partners themselves are hilariously hopeless, either in official relationships, extramarital affairs or visits to prostitutes. Van Straaten's sex cartoons were published under the title 'Doe Ik 't Goed?' ('Am I Doing It Right?') in the Flemish magazine Humo, as well as the Dutch erotic magazine Penthouse.

Voyeuristic Settings

He produced three extensive volumes of erotic drawings that are more explicit and without text; 'Aanstoot (Offence)' (1984), 'Nastoot (Revenge)' (1987) and 'Lust' (2006). The illustrations in the first one, Aanstoot, which is included in its entirety below, depict mostly voyeuristic settings, sex was seen as something normal, something you could perform anywhere – in the open field, at the tram stop – anywhere you felt like it.

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In the Premium edition of the article you can check out the complete volume including 41 additional images + an alternative version of figure 4.

Click HERE for the erotic genius of the French illustrator Albert Dubout

Sources: twitter.com, lambiek.net, vintage-erotica-forum.com,