Three original paintings by beloved television artist Bob Ross sold for more than $600,000 at a Los Angeles auction on Tuesday, marking the beginning of an unprecedented fundraising campaign to help public broadcasting stations across the United States cope with severe federal funding cuts. The auction, hosted by Bonhams auction house, represents the first time many of these iconic artworks have been available for public sale.
The three landscape paintings showcased Ross's signature artistic style, featuring his trademark saturated colors and whimsical cloud formations that made him famous on PBS. "Winter's Peace," a 1993 painting depicting a snow-covered cabin nestled among evergreen trees, commanded the highest price at $318,000. "Home in the Valley," also from 1993 and showing a solitary house overlooking a serene lake with mountains and clear blue skies in the background, sold for $229,100. The third piece, "Cliffside" from 1990, which captures a flowing river rushing through rocky cliff crevices, brought in $114,800.
These sales are part of a larger initiative involving 30 Bob Ross paintings donated to American Public Television by Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc., the company that manages the late artist's commercial empire. The remaining 27 paintings will be auctioned throughout next year at multiple Bonhams locations in Boston, New York, and Los Angeles. Most of these artworks have only been seen by television audiences during the original filming of Ross's shows, making this auction particularly significant for art collectors and fans alike.
The fundraising effort comes in response to the Trump administration's elimination of $1.1 billion in federal funding for public media, leaving hundreds of public television stations struggling to maintain their operations. Bob Ross, who died in 1995 at the age of 52, became a beloved pop culture icon during the 1980s through his PBS program "The Joy of Painting," which was broadcast on hundreds of public television stations nationwide and taught viewers his "wet-on-wet" painting technique.
Kowalski developed the auction concept after observing that Bonhams had successfully sold two privately-owned Bob Ross paintings in August for approximately $100,000 each, demonstrating strong market demand for the artist's work. All proceeds from the auction series will be distributed by American Public Television, which serves as a syndicator for "The Joy of Painting" and numerous other programs, directly to public broadcasting stations most in need of financial relief. Neither American Public Television nor Bob Ross Inc. were available for comment following Tuesday's successful auction results.
