AbstractIn this paper we consider piecewise linear finite element approximations to the problem of planar linear elasticity, and present some new estimates for the pointwise (L∞) superconvergence of a recovered gradient function to the gradient of the true solution. This extends to linear elasticity the previous work of the present and other authors onL∞results for Poisson problems, and at the same time, to theL∞norm the previousL2results of the authors for linear elast