Three paintings by the beloved American artist and The Joy of Painting host Bob Ross are expected to fetch as much as $145,000 in total at a Bonhams Los Angeles auction in November. American Public Television (APT), a non-profit syndicator of programming, will donate all proceeds to support public television stations across the US. The fundraising sales come after US President Donald Trump and a Republican-controlled Congress rescinded more than $1bn in federal funding previously allocated to support public broadcasters.
Ross’s how-to art instruction series, The Joy of Painting, aired on public television in the US for nearly a decade, from 1983 to 1994. His gentle demeanor and positive encouragement (“We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents”) helped make him an American pop-culture icon before his death from cancer complications in 1995.
One of the paintings up for sale at Bonhams is Winter’s Peace (1993), painted entirely on air for an episode from the 30th season of The Joy of Painting. Bonhams estimates that it will sell for between $30,000 and $50,000. Ross painted the vibrantly coloured Home in the Valley the same year in only about 26 minutes, Bonhams says. The painting is fresh to market, and has been stored by Bob Ross Inc. It was painted during filming and has an estimate of $30,000 to 50,000. The third painting, Cliffside (1990) was painted for Ross’s The Joy of Painting Volume 20 instructional book. Ross spent extra time on the paintings to be published in his books, often between three and five hours on each work, Bonhams says. Cliffside is expected to fetch between $25,000 and $45,000.
Bob Ross’s Winter's Peace (1993) Courtesy Bonhams
The three paintings are the first of 30 that Bonhams will sell over the next 14 months. They were donated by Bob Ross Inc, the company that owns nearly all of the paintings Ross completed on air while filming more than 400 episodes of The Joy of Painting across 31 seasons. Ross paintings rarely come to auction, and Bonhams holds the record price, $114,800 (with fees) for Lake Below Snow-Capped Peaks and Cloudy Sky (around 1990-91), set just two months ago. The painting more than doubled the high end of its $30,000 to $50,000 estimate. Bonhams says Ross’s market is “steadily rising”.
The three works will be part of Bonhams’s California & Western Art sale on 11 November in Los Angeles. The remaining 27 works will be offered throughout 2026 at Bonhams locations in New York, Boston and Los Angeles. APT has pledged to donate proceeds to support APT and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations nationwide.
Earlier this year, following Trump’s orders, congressional Republicans voted to slash funding to PBS and National Public Radio (NPR) as part of a larger $9.4bn rescissions package that also targeted US foreign aid. Throughout his campaign, Trump attacked public broadcasters for their “biased” coverage, and according to the White House, PBS and NPR stations are “entities that receive tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news'". The funding cuts are most devastating to smaller stations serving rural and impoverished areas, and could result in less local news coverage after layoffs.