# @sothebys on YouTube

- **Type:** Video
- **Original URL:** https://youtube.com/watch?v=q-7G3pCKo-8
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70850868-sothebys-youtube
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/3badc4f941.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-18T09:07:01.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Sotheby's (@sothebys) — https://gondola.cc/sothebys

## Caption

How many trees can you count? Eight, surely. Yet Bhupen Khakhar’s own account of Old Men Playing Chess insists there are seven. A simple mistake, a private joke, or something more deliberate? In Khakhar’s world, even the artist can’t quite be trusted to tell us what we’re seeing. 

Painted around 1972, Old Men Playing Chess turns a quiet game into something more elusive: a meditation on friendship, ageing, mortality and the slippery business of interpreting art. Along the way, Khakhar’s wonderfully eccentric exhibition catalogue reveals an artist who could create a painting, critique it, and then quietly undermine his own authority. Perhaps that is the game. Perhaps there were always eight trees.

This provocative piece is on offer in the Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art auction taking place at Sotheby's London on 29 September. 

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Want more information on the sale ?
►► https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2026/modern-contemporary-south-asian-art-2?locale=en #BhupenKhakhar #IndianArt #ModernArt #ArtHistory #Sothebys

## Stats

- **Views:** 9,450
- **Likes:** 110
- **Shares:** 0
- **Comments:** 2

## Tags

indianart, arthistory, bhupenkhakhar, sothebys, modernart

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