The dream team

OVER THE LAST 40 YEARS, ELLE HAS CELEBRATED CREATIVITY OF ALL KINDS. HERE, A RANGE OF TODAY’S LEADING ARTISTS, WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS AND DIRECTORS SHARE THE RITUALS, ROUTINES AND REALITIES BEHIND THEIR GREATEST WORKS, FROM MIND-BLOWING EXCEL SHEETS TO THE MAGIC OF THE DARK ROOM

Avoiding the curse of the figurative

EMILY PONSONBY’S PAINTINGS STRIP AWAY everything but the essentials: skin, scars and the stories they carry. Using beeswax and oil, she sculpts figures that feel weathered and alive, sometimes faceles

The piece I’d never part with

Anew exhibition at the Garden Museum, Cecil Beaton’s Garden Party, will make you smile and you will leave wanting to go a little more over the top. This infectiously enthusiastic celebration of an ind

From Raphael and the mysterious Fornarina to Jan Steen with his flirtatious Margriet and Suzanne Valadon, who broke many hearts until she lost hers to a much younger man, Nick Trend explores five romances that made art history