Art Market
Paul Laster
May 2, 2025 1:00PM
Portrait of Bob Ross. Courtesy of bob Ross Inc.
One of the best-known broadcasters of his time, Bob Ross, hosted the television show The Joy of Painting on PBS from 1983 to 1994. The show, which spanned 403 episodes over 31 seasons, was syndicated to nearly 300 PBS stations nationwide and attracted more than 80 million viewers at its peak.
The popular instructional program helped viewers become landscape painters by following Ross’s “wet-on-wet” oil painting technique, also known as “alla prima,” which involves applying wet paint directly onto wet paint, allowing for smooth blending and vibrant colors.
Thanks to his consistent presence in the media, Ross remains a household name in the U.S. today. Recently, however, it is Ross’s paintings that have been catching the eyes of art collectors. Last September, a pair of the artist’s pieces sold at Bonhams Skinner—the first time such works have appeared at a major auction house—for $32,000 and $51,200 each (including fees).
Bob Ross, A Misty Mountain Lake Below Snow-Capped Peaks, 1978. Courtesy of Bonhams Skinner.
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Demand for Ross’s paintings is surging. The artist is estimated to have executed around 30,000 paintings in his lifetime, and collectors are paying increased attention. “We believe we are just at the beginning of the Bob Ross market,” said Ryan Nelson, owner of Modern Artifact, which has sold a number of Ross paintings. “With each passing year, appreciation for Bob Ross continues to grow, and we anticipate his market will follow a trajectory similar to other historically significant artists.”
Bob Ross’s continued relevance
Bob Ross, Cabin By a Lake with Northern Lights, 1968. Courtesy of Bonhams Skinner.
Portrait of Bob Ross. Courtesy of Bob Ross Inc.
Bob Ross’s influence has endured well beyond his passing in 1995. The Joy of Painting is regularly rerun and is available on streaming services, along with other Ross-related content
Ross has been immortalized in documentaries, including Bob Ross: The Happy Painter (2011) and Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed (2021). In 2023, the satirical feature film Paint starred Owen Wilson as an artist hosting a TV show on a PBS station in Vermont, a portrayal that drew comparisons to Ross. Younger generations are also getting on board, too: In 2015, for instance, a channel on the streaming platform Twitch played back-to-back episodes of the show and garnered 5.6 million unique viewers.
Today, Bob Ross has more than 6 million YouTube subscribers, a million friends on Facebook, and 547,000 followers on Instagram. More than 50 episodes of “the soft-spoken guy painting happy clouds, mountains, and trees in about twenty-six television minutes” are available as podcasts on Spotify.
Ross’s contemporary resonance was boosted further during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, when viewers were drawn to his soothing approach to artmaking. “I really do believe the greatest driver was the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown that trapped us all desperately seeking any little bit of relief we could find,” said Adam D. Henning, owner of Henning Fine Art, which has also sold several works by Ross. “We now appreciate and see the more important social role that he played, affecting literally millions of lives while alive and then even more in the decades after.”
Ross’s paintings have also entered institutions: In 2022, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History acquired four Ross landscape paintings for its “Entertainment Nation” exhibition, and that same year, works by Ross were included in the group exhibition “WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD: The World of ASMR” at London’s Design Museum. Ross will also “later his year or early next” be the subject of a show at the Minnetrista Museum in Indiana, which will feature dozens of works from The Joy of Painting, according to the Wall Street Journal.
How the market for Bob Ross paintings has developed
Nearly 25 years after Ross’s passing, a 2019 New York Times article, “Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them” noted that cases of his paintings being listed for sale were “rare.” The report highlighted a warehouse full of paintings at Bob Ross Inc., a company that Ross founded with Annette and Walt Kowalski in 1985. Nearly all of Ross’s paintings he created on air for PBS are owned by Bob Ross Inc., according to the story, and the firm also stewards the authentication process for Ross works.
According to FiveThirtyEight, 1,143 original works were executed in The Joy of Painting, but according to NPR, Ross once suggested that he had painted more than 30,000 works in his career. “Bob didn’t sell a lot of paintings, but he would give them away, so there are a lot of people out there that have paintings,” Joan Kowalski of Bob Ross Inc. shared on the Design by Experience podcast in July 2022.
In recent years, however, things have begun to change. “His paintings have become so popular that people are wanting to get them authenticated [which is what Bob Ross Inc. does], so there are a lot of them coming out now,” noted Kowalski on the podcast. “A guy in Florida drove 14 hours to get a painting authenticated that he bought at a Goodwill outlet for $1.35.”
In September 2023, Modern Artifact made headlines when it listed A Walk in the Woods—a 1983 painting completed on air during the first episode of The Joy of Painting—for a staggering $9.85 million.
Bob Ross, A Walk in the Woods, 1983. Courtesy of Modern Artifact.
“It is exceedingly rare to find any Bob Ross episode pieces, and this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to own the very first one,” the gallery wrote in its press release for the work. “Although Bob Ross’s paintings have become highly sought after by collectors, the market is still emerging. “A Walk in the Woods” is a museum-worthy piece that will set the standard for the continued development of the Bob Ross art market.”
Modern Artifact acquired the canvas, which Bob Ross Inc. verified as authentic, from a former volunteer at the Falls Church, Virginia, PBS station, where the first season of The Joy of Painting aired. The volunteer reportedly bought it at a station fundraising auction months after it was painted. According to Nelson, “Ross originally sold his paintings for as little as $5, as they were not widely regarded as collectible art at the time.”
Since then, the market for Ross’s paintings has continued to blossom. In September 2024, Bonhams Skinner has sold four Ross works painted between 1968 and 1978 in the price range of $32,000 to $51,400 since September 2024. According to Modern Artifact’s Nelson, “In the past year, we have sold Bob Ross originals in a wide price range, from $10,000 to over six figures.”
Much of the reason for the growth in Ross’s market has to do with how his works are being perceived by buyers, particularly those with an affinity for Ross and his TV show. “Nostalgia is a big factor. Truth be told, I’ve had a Bob Ross bobblehead on my shelf for many years,” said Robin Starr, general manager at Bonhams Skinner. “An awful lot of us grew up watching him paint, and that generation will find solace in owning a piece with such familiarity and nostalgia for them.”
Indeed, many of those who grew up with Ross have also reached the point where they are in a position to buy his art, noted Henning: “We had to let the children who were most impacted by it become of age go to college, work good-paying jobs, and settle into adulthood,” he said. “This is the cycle for many groups of collectibles.”
As more works enter the market to address this interest, the market for Ross paintings is poised to grow further. An enduring figure in American culture, Ross’s appeal is as strong now as it was when he was on air. “When people see his work, they don’t just remember his television series, they recall a figure who inspired them to believe in their own creative potential,” said Nelson. “His message was always about more than painting—it was about overcoming doubt and embracing the joy of creation.”
Paul Laster
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