Four Artists in the News: Damien Hirst’s Painting for Elton John, Jessie Homer French's Late-Career Success and Did Andy Warhol Film Edward Albee’s Drunken Muses?

Jessie Homer French, the self-taught artist whose career is flourishing aged 83, tells The New York Times how she is inspired by the high desert in Southern California as her solo show opens at Various Small Fires in Los Angeles this weekend.

Damien Hirst’s love-heart painting specially created for Elton John and David Furnish is a star lot in "The Collection of Sir Elton John: Goodbye Peachtree Road" at Christie’s New York. The auction of the contents of the musician’s former Atlanta home takes place in February. (Sunny1079)

Andy Warhol's recently preserved film, which MoMA is screening, documents a combative artist couple who were underground filmmakers. Marie Menken and Willard Maas, who knew the playwright Edward Albee, may have inspired his famous play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" reports The New York Times.

Magdalene Odundo went to school in Kenya in the 1950s, where she learned about European male artists but not to a single Kenyan artist, writes Border Crossings. The British-Kenyan ceramic artist explores that legacy in her solo show, "A Dialogue with Objects”, now on view at Toronto’s Gardiner Museum.

The shortlist for France’s most prestigious award, the Prix Marcel Duchamp, has been announced, featuring Abdelkader Benchamma, Gaëlle Choisne, Angela Detanico and Rafael Lain, plus Noémie Goudal. (Art Review)

In other news

An expert witness tells the Rybolovlev trial how to spot a dodgy art advisor, ARTnews reports. Former FBI agent Robert Wittman, the creator of the Bureau’s art crime team, gave testimony in the legal battle between the oligarch and Sotheby’s.