Bob Ross, the man with the distinctive curly hairstyle, painted around 400 paintings from 1983 to 1994 in “The Joy of Painting”. With the TV show, the painter, who never saw himself as an artist, wanted to prove that anyone can create attractive paintings without any problems. True to the motto: If you don’t like something, just paint a tree over it and everything will be fine again. In each episode of the 34 seasons broadcast, Ross created landscape paintings with “happy little clouds” and “happy little trees” within 30 minutes using his wet-on-wet painting technique with a thick, bristly brush.
Now the painting, called “A Walk in the Woods,” which translates to “A Walk in the Woods,” is up for sale for nearly $10 million. What’s special about the picture: It was painted by Bob Ross in the very first episode of his TV show. It shows colorful trees, gray angular rocks and of course blue water in the typical Ross look.
Ross had given the landscape painting to the television station where his show was recorded. The station sold it to a woman who had the picture hanging in her house for almost 40 years. The gallery “Modern Artifact” from the US city of Minneapolis bought the picture from the owner for an unknown sum. Ryan Nelson, owner of the gallery, says Ross was “the people’s artist” and “it’s the masses, the people of the world, who say Bob Ross is great.” Until the picture finds a new owner for a whopping $9.4 million, Nelson could also imagine exhibiting the painting in a museum. As a Ross fan, it is probably his great wish that many people enjoy the work of art.
On July 4, 1995, Bob Ross died of complications from cancer in Florida. With his distinctive curly hairstyle, he is now a cult figure. With his gentle charisma and soothing voice, Bob Ross crept into the hearts of an audience of millions – to this day. There is a channel on Twitch with 2.1 million followers that regularly streams old episodes of the TV show. There is also a fan channel on YouTube that has 5.63 million subscribers.
Sources: “NTV”, “ZDF”
