Due to the federal funding being cut from public television stations after an executive order by Donald Trump, these public stations have decided to auction the creations of the late Bob Ross to make up for lost funding.
The executive order caused stations such as NPR and PBS to find other sources of income to make up for the lost funding. Some started emergency fund raising drives, others looked to lay off workers and reduce the size of their operations. The auction of Bob Ross’ paintings is another way these programs are attempting to make back the lost funding.
The first auction is set to take place on November 11th, during the California and Western Art sale. It has been confirmed that at least three paintings will be auctioned at the event. The three paintings that have been confirmed are being auctioned are ‘Cliffside’, ‘Winter’s Peace’, and ‘Home in the Valley’.
The rest of the paintings are planned to be sold throughout 2026 at salerooms in New York, Boston, and Los Angeles. The full 30 paintings have bene estimated to have a total value between $850,000 and $1.4 million.
The president of the Bob Ross Inc, Joan Kowalski, has said in a statement, “Bob Ross dedicated his life to making art accessible to everyone through public television. This auction ensures his legacy continues to support the very medium that brought his joy and creativity into American homes for decades,”.
I personally don’t know how to feel about the paintings being auctioned off. On one hand, it is to keep public stations on air which Bob Ross loved and made these paintings on, on the other it feels wrong to sell a man’s legacy to keep a business afloat instead of more standard means.
