Everyone loves Bob Ross, and if you don't love Bob Ross, it's clearly because you have
an unhappy little soul.
Ross became an icon back in the early 1980's when he began effortlessly creating landscapes
on PBS, and he's even more of an icon now, nearly a quarter of a century after his 1995
death.
It's no wonder, then, that so many people want to own a Bob Ross original painting.
But how much do they actually cost?
According to Smithsonian, Bob Ross made 1,143 paintings for his PBS show, The Joy of Painting.
There were actually three versions of each individual painting.
The first he made as a reference work to be used during the taping.
This version was hidden off camera.
The second painting in the trio was the one he made on camera, and the third he made afterward
to be used in instructional books.
But he certainly made more paintings than just the ones for his show - Ross himself
claimed he'd made 30,000 paintings in his lifetime.
To put that number in perspective, it's roughly 15 times as many works of art as Vincent van
Gogh is believed to have made during his lifetime.
"Hello, I'm Bob Ross.
I'm certainly glad you could join me today.
It's a fantastic day here and I hope it is wherever you're at.
Are you ready to do a fantastic painting?"
And Ross also claimed that most of the paintings he created for his show were auctioned off
by local PBS stations.
During one of his shows, he reportedly said
"One of the questions that I hear over and over and over is, 'What do we do with all
these paintings we do on television?'
Most of these paintings are donated to PBS stations across the country.
They auction them off, and they make a happy buck with 'em.
So if you'd like to have one, get in touch with your PBS station, 'cause … we give
them to stations all over the country to help them out with their fundraisers."
So with that many Bob Ross paintings to choose from out in the wild, it seems like you ought
to be able to buy one, right?
Well, not so fast.
Despite Ross's claims that most of his televised works were sold at auction during PBS fundraisers,
there seem to be surprisingly few Ross paintings actually on the market.
And it's not because they're so coveted by collectors, or hanging on the walls of people
who just are not willing to part with them, or inside museums.
According to the New York Times, it's actually because they're in a bunch of cardboard boxes
in a room at Bob Ross Inc., the company that manages Ross's legacy.
Yes, much like the Ark of the Covenant, they're in storage, even if they belong in a museum.
"That belongs in a museum!"
Bob Ross Inc. currently has 1,165 original Bob Ross paintings in a private storage room
in its northern Virginia headquarters.
It's hard to say how many of those were created for the PBS show and how many of them were
created for other reasons, but it's kind of starting to look like maybe "most" of them
weren't auctioned off by PBS.
And Bob Ross Inc. doesn't plan on selling them, either.
Some of Bob Ross' paintings were donated to the Smithsonian, though, so you may someday
get to look at them in person… but that's as close as you'll probably ever get.
And even that is theoretical at the moment: the museum hasn't actually made any plans
to put them on display yet, so when fans will get to see them is still a pretty big question.
If you're diligent and you keep your feelers out, though, an opportunity to buy a Bob Ross
painting might one day surface.
The president of Bob Ross Inc. told the New York Times that the paintings do rarely sell
online for between $8,000 and $10,000
And not long ago two of Bob Ross' earlier works turned up in an Alaskan antique store.
Before Ross taught the world the joy of painting, he used to paint gold pans and sell them for
$25; in 2018, a pair of Ross original gold pans resurfaced and sold within a day for
$3,500 each.
If you do find an original Bob Ross listed for sale, though, here's a tip: Have it authenticated
before shelling out that kind of money.
It won't be easy to find a real one and it won't be cheap, either.
But hey, it's still way cheaper than a Van Gogh.
For now.
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