Posted on 09/22/2023 8:57:31 AM PDT by Red Badger
If you want these happy little trees, you’ll need a lot of green. Beloved TV artist Bob Ross’s first-ever on-air painting is up for sale and costs almost $10 million.
The late host of PBS’s “The Joy of Painting” became massively popular for his friendly, calm demeanor and his insistence that anyone can become an artist. Now Modern Artifact Gallery in Minneapolis is selling “A Walk in the Woods,” the first of over 400 paintings Ross made on the show. Ross painted it for the premiere episode which aired on January 11, 1983.
“It is season one, episode one of what you would call the rookie card for Bob Ross,” gallery owner Ryan Nelson said of the work, per The Guardian. Nelson added that he doesn’t expect the work to sell quickly because of the cost.
“What this piece represents is the people’s artist,” the gallery owner continued. “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.”
“A Walk in the Woods” was originally sold for an undisclosed amount to a volunteer to raise funds for the local PBS station. The painting was displayed in her home for almost four decades before she contacted Nelson about purchasing it. He bought it last year, then gave it the “not for sale” price of $9.89 million, the outlet noted.
“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,” Nelson’s publicist said. “He will take offers but he’s not in a hurry to sell it.”
Ross, who died in 1995, had a passion for removing pretentious attitudes from the art world. As he said in the first episode, “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. And here, we want to show you that that’s not true. That you can paint a picture.”
Hunter should up his prices......after all, buyers get federal favors and even sit-downs w/ a president.
Makes Bob Ross look like a piker.
"You will PAINT that happy little tree RIGHT THERE, or you will peel potatoes for the NEXT WEEK! YOU GOT THAT, MAGGOT???"
"SIR, YES SIR!"
Yes. Air Force stationed in Alaska.
Is his estate selling this...or that wretched woman who stole his name and money?
I don’t click on Ross vids on YT anymore because she’s monetized.
As with all “art”, the selling price has nothing to do with the aesthetic appeal.
I dropped out of college after the first quarter and fled with my sister and her "old-man" to Louisville, KY, arriving there for the massive traffic jam in the late evening of Derby Day. Talk about omens.
Six months later I went back home to my parents, met and married my wife soon after, enlisted in the USAF, learned telecommunications and had a forty year career, retiring from Verizon after 31 years.
I only admire art now but as side note, I was born one hundred years to the day after Vincent van Gogh. Maybe I dodged a mournful fate. Our next wedding anniversary is the big five-oh. I also did a competent charcoal portrait of my bride though.
I bet that brings you both joy.
Ping
Yes thanks.
Still more evidence that for entertainers, dying young is a good career move.
Bob’s re-runs are now on the telly in the UK and he’s a cult figure (not unlike the Germans with David Hasselhoff). It’s all rather bizarre.
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