Bob Ross, The Happy Painter

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Bob Ross, the famous painter was born in Daytona Beach, Florida on October 29, 1942. He was in the Air Force for 20 years. He attended an art class at the Anchorage U.S.O. club and developed an interest in painting. He was working part-time as a bartender and discovered a TV show, The Magic of Oil Painting. He studied and mastered his technique and began selling successful Alaskan landscapes. Soon his income from painting surpassed his military one. In 1981 he retired as a master sergeant. He returned to Florida where, pooling his own and some friend's money they started Ross' art company. In 1982 a station in Falls Church, Virginia aired a taping of his art class as a pilot, and then 60 PBS stations signed up for his show in the first year. It ran from January 1983 until May 1994. He built $ 15 million from his Bob Ross Inc. art supplies and class recordings. It is estimated that he painted over 30,000 paintings during his lifetime. Many of them were squirrels. he was a great animal lover. His paintings are rather scarce in the market place but some go for as much as $10,000. His first television painting called "A Walk in the Woods" is, as of September 2023, owned by Ryan Nelson, a Minnesota-based art dealer. Nelson has placed an asking price of $9,850,000 for the sale of the painting although he has indicated that he has other plans for the painting if it doesn't sell. Bob was very secretive during his life and only did a few interviews. There is a PBS documentary, Bob Ross: The Happy Painter is about the only group of interviews still in existence since others were destroyed as part of a legal settlement between his family and Bob Ross Inc.. That enterprise is protective of his intellectual property to this day. He was a cigarette smoker most of his life. On July 4, 1995, at the age of 52, he passed away due to complications from Lymphoma. At that time he had prepared seven paintings for a potential 32nd season of The Joy of Painting. The picture is from twoinchbrush.com