Bob Ross was an artist who brought painting to the people, his works completed for PBS viewers in less than a half hour with little more than a large bristle brush, a putty knife and plenty of encouragement. It is unlikely he would have envisioned one of his works going up for sale for nearly $10m.
But that is the price a Minneapolis gallery is now asking for A Walk in the Woods, the first of more than 400 paintings Ross produced on-air for his TV series The Joy of Painting.
“It is season one, episode one of what you would call the rookie card for Bob Ross,” Ryan Nelson, who owns the Modern Artifact gallery, said of the work created in the show’s debut, which aired on 11 January 1983.
Nelson said he was introduced to art through Ross’s show and loved his paintings. He does not expect a quick sale given the high asking price, which he sees as an opportunity to display the painting for a larger audience.
On that first show, Ross – sporting perm, full beard and unbuttoned shirt – stressed that painting did not need to be pretentious.
“We have avoided painting for so long because I think all of our lives we’ve been told that you have to go to school half your life, maybe even have to be blessed by Michelangelo at birth, to ever be able to paint a picture,” Ross said. “And here, we want to show you that that’s not true. That you can paint a picture.”
Ross, who died in 1995, hosted the show from 1983 until 1994. In each episode, he spoke directly to viewers he encouraged to paint with him as he created idealized scenes of streams backed by mountains, waterfalls, and rustic cabins and mills – all done very quickly.
None of Ross’s paintings, including A Walk in the Woods, would be confused for masterpieces. But that wasn’t the point.
“What this piece represents is the people’s artist,” Nelson said. “This isn’t an institution that’s telling you that Bob Ross is great. It’s not some high-brow gallery telling you that Bob Ross is great. This is the masses, the population in the world that are saying that Bob Ross is great.”
The first season of The Joy of Painting was filmed in Falls Creek, Virginia. The painting from the first show was sold to raise funds for the local PBS station. A volunteer bought the painting for an undisclosed price and hung it in her home for 39 years until getting in touch with Nelson, who has bought and sold more than 100 of Ross’s works.
Nelson bought the painting last year then gave it a “not for sale” price of $9.85m, said his publicist, Megan Hoffman.
Hoffman said the asking price was far more than any other Ross painting has sold for, but A Walk in the Woods was unique and Nelson was not looking for a quick sale. She noted that Ross’s popularity has soared, with 5.63 million subscribers to a YouTube channel featuring his shows.
“Ryan would prefer to take [the painting] out, tour it around to museums and things like that so people can enjoy it and appreciate it,” Hoffman said. “He will take offers but he’s not in a hurry to sell it.”