![]() Thanks in part to Ross’ soothing voice and his signature round afro, The Joy of Painting was a hit. When his side hustle began bringing in more money than his Air Force career, he decided to pursue artwork and trained under Bill Alexander, another television painter who helped Ross land his own show. ![]() While in Alaska, Ross began selling local landscape scenes on gold mining pans to local tourist shops. “I promised myself that if I ever got away from it, I wasn’t going to be that way anymore.” The job requires you to be a mean, tough person,” he told the Orlando Sentinel in 1990. “I was the guy who makes you scrub the latrine, the guy who makes you make your bed, the guy who screams at you for being late to work. A Florida native and high school dropout, he moved to Alaska after joining the Air Force, where he spent two decades as a drill sergeant, earning the nickname “Bust ’em up Bobby” for his strict disciplinary style. Acey Harper/Getty Imagesĭespite his prodigious output and the cult following that built up around him, Ross found painting late in his career. “The appeal of Bob Ross has extended far beyond the traditional art market and into the world of pop culture,” said Nelson, adding that his enduring popularity is especially impressive “considering that there is virtually no official marketing and his original paintings are nearly impossible to find.” Bob Ross painting a landscape, accompanied by a pet crow. He was a prodigious artist and produced, by some estimates, 30,000 paintings in his lifetime, so beyond the PBS landscapes, there are pieces to be acquired. It does not offer them up for sale.Įven Modern Artifact, which claims to have bought and sold more Bob Ross paintings than anyone else, resorts to placing wanted ads in local newspapers serving areas where Ross formerly resided in an attempt to locate works. Besides donating a few pieces to the Smithsonian and lending others out to galleries, the company keeps most of the landscapes in a Virginia office building. ![]() The majority of the more than 1,000 paintings created by the artist during The Joy of Painting (three for each episode, with only one painted on camera) are owned by his company Bob Ross Inc. ![]() But in addition to the landscape’s historical significance, A Walk in the Woods‘ high price tag comes down to the lack of authenticated Ross pieces available on the market. Why are Bob Ross paintings so hard to find?ĭespite the continued popularity of his decades-old lessons, Bob Ross works usually command just thousands of dollars, not millions. “It’s a truly irreplicable, one-of-a-kind painting,” said Ryan Nelson, owner of Modern Artifact, in a statement, adding that while the gallery is “accepting offers to purchase A Walk in the Woods, they would prefer to share it with a museum or traveling exhibit to allow as many people as possible to view such an exciting work of art.” The gallery acquired the work last year from a former volunteer at the PBS station that filmed Ross’s show who purchased the work during a fundraising auction held to support the station. Offered by Minneapolis-based gallery Modern Artifact, the landscape is signed by Ross and authenticated by his eponymous company. ![]()
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