Bob Ross Sale Nets $1.27m for U.S. Public Television

A trio of paintings by the late American artist Bob Ross, the beloved host of television series The Joy of Painting (1983–1994), has collectively achieved sales totalling $1.27 million (with fees)—more than half of the auction’s total sales of $2.4 million—at Bonhams Skinner’s Americana: Crafting a Nation: Art, History & Legacy sale, held yesterday in Marlborough, Massachusetts. 

Leading the sale was Ross’ 1990 oil painting Change of Seasons, selling for $787,900—far surpassing its high estimate of $60,000. The autumnal vista depicts snowy mountains, a river and forest against a pastel-hued sky. It was executed on the TV series’ 20th season, with Ross calling it ‘just a beautiful little painting’.

Two other landscape paintings by Ross, Valley View (1990) and Babbling Brook (1993), sold for $203,700, (with a presale high estimate of $50,000) and $279,900 (with a high estimate of $45,000) respectively.

The three Ross paintings were offered by American Public Television (APT), a non-profit syndicator of television programming, which pledged to direct 100 percent of net proceeds to public television stations across the U.S.

Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross Inc., said in a statement: ‘To see Bob’s paintings resonate so powerfully reminds me that his work continues to bring joy and meaning to people’s lives. I’m hopeful that Bob’s work can provide meaningful support to stations nationwide. It’s exactly what Bob would have wanted—to continue inspiring and uplifting public television for generations to come.’

Other headline results in the Americana auction were achieved from works by the 18th-century French American ornithologist and illustrator John James Audubon, whose oil painting Trophy of American Game Birds achieved $394,200, and Edward Troye, a 19th-century American artist known for his paintings of horses, whose oil-on-canvas work The Dawson Boys (1853) fetched $305,300.

Last November, three works by Ross, also offered by APT with proceeds going towards public media, together sold for more than $660,000 at Bonhams’ Los Angeles auction.

Bonhams Skinner will offer a new collection of Ross’ paintings in its New York auction this April. —[O]

Editor’s Note: This article was updated on 28 January 2026 to accurately reflect the number of Bob Ross artworks sold in the November 2025 auction. A previous version erroneously stated this to be 30; Bonhams is selling 30 works by Ross across multiple auctions, of which the November sale was the first.

Main image: Bob Ross, Change of Seasons (1990) (detail). Bob Ross Wet-on-Wet Technique® on canvas. 45.7 x 61.0 cm. Courtesy Bonhams.