Three paintings by beloved artist and television personality Bob Ross sold for as much as thirteen times their high estimates at a Bonhams Skinner auction on Tuesday, netting $1.3 million for American Public Television (APT). The paintings come from a group of thirty that Bob Ross, Inc. consigned to Bonhams in October, with a total estimated value of up to $1.4 million, to benefit APT and PBS stations nationwide.
The Ross works came to the block as part of the sale “Americana: Crafting a Nation: Art, History, & Legacy” that included paintings, folk art, and other historical artifacts. The sale, at Bonhams Skinner’s auction room in Marlborough, Massachusetts, totaled $2.4 million, exceeding its presale high estimate of $1.6 million, and also included works by John James Audubon and Arthur Wesley Dow, as well as a painting of Washington Crossing the Delaware after the famed canvas by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze.
Leading the sale was Ross’s Change of Seasons (1990), which was painted live on air during his popular “Joy of Painting” television series, which aired from 1983 to 1994 and gained a new wave of popularity during Covid-19 lockdowns. It fetched $787,900, more than thirteen times its high estimate. That sets a new high for Ross at traditional auction houses, according to art market data analytics company ARTDAI, though his Cabinet at Sunset (1986) notched a new record for Ross at $1 million when it was offered on the HBO show “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” to benefit public broadcasting last year.
Also successful on Tuesday were Ross’s Babbling Brook (1993), which sold for $279,900, more than six times its high estimate, and Valley View (1990), which went for $203,700, more than four times its high estimate. Those now rank third and fifth among Ross’s sales at auction houses, per ARTDAI.
The sale comes just a few months after the news that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helped direct funds to National Public Radio and PBS, would shutter. Congress last year cut $1.1 billion in funds previously allocated to public broadcasting.
“I’m deeply humbled by today’s extraordinary results,” said Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc., in press materials. “To see Bob’s paintings resonate so powerfully reminds me that his work continues to bring joy and meaning to people’s lives. I’m hopeful that Bob’s work can provide meaningful support to stations nationwide. It’s exactly what Bob would have wanted—to continue inspiring and uplifting public television for generations to come.”
