I don't know why the article and everyone here is coming away with the conclusion that Bob Ross didn't want his art to be sold.
A simpler reasoning is that there wasn't any demand for his paintings while he was alive. His show ran from 1983-1994 and he died in 1995. He was reasonably popular at that time, sure, but Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
Now there is a trove of 1,165 paintings which are no doubt valuable, but cannot all be sold because they would flood the market and decrease their own value. So Bob Ross, Inc. is cleverly keeping them under lock and key and letting the scarcity drive prices up.
> Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
No, he was just as well-known when his show was on the air. He was a household name, his paintings and style was known, and people talked about him enough to have opinions on whether he was an "artist" or just a TV show host.
I was going to call this anecdotal evidence based on it never appearing in the top 100 (or so) Nielson rated TV shows for a year, based on the lists for 1984-1995 here[0].
However, it looks like PBS never signed up for Nielson until 2009, so we have limited/no public data on viewership of The Joy of Painting (or Sesame Street, etc for that matter).
There's a lot of TV shows out there, even in the 80s and 90s, and plenty of ways for celebrities to have their image and reputation bolstered. Ratings aren't reliable in trying to measure someone's notoriety.
Growing up in the late 80s/90s, and mostly outside of the US, I can't remember a time when I didn't know who Bob Ross was.
Did you grow up wealthy in the 80s? Most people didn’t have cable television back then, it was comparatively expensive and not available outside major metropolitan areas. Most people only had a half dozen TV channels or so, and sometimes Bob Ross was the only thing on TV worth watching. Everyone knew who he was.
We were not rich but had basic cable since 1979 or so. Maybe California was ahead on that front. My memory is that it only cost perhaps $10 a month in the 80s.
My experience was that accidentally tuning into Joy of Painting for about 45 seconds was enough to completely hook me (although I was not fully aware of this at the time).
There was a lot less tv in the 80s. If you didn’t have cable, then you just had a handful of channels. I didn’t watch Joy of Painting, but it was pretty hard not to notice the painting Afro guy when flipping through the extremely limited number of channels most people had access to.
My sense is that he was known to frequent PBS viewers (I remember him from before 2010) — but the whole Chia-fro thing and "happy clouds" or whatever meme-like thing that comes to mind definitely took him to the mainstream crowd with the internet.
I present the evidence of Family Guy episode _Fifteen Minutes of Shame_ airdate April 25, 2000 which had a Bob Ross bit. Bob Ross was part of the cultural zeitgeist long before the 2010s Internet memes. That has brought a new generation to him, but that's just bringing GenZ in line with the others.
I think a lot of people who were or had kids pre-internet streaming probably watched PBS, at least sometimes.
Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Joy of Painting, Arthur, Bill Nye, Barney, Teletubbies, etc.
It's not like there were a lot of TV choices for kids if their parents couldn't afford cable (and some stations like Cartoon Network didn't even exist until 1992+, I think even Disney Channel was a premium channel like HBO).
Bob Ross was known in my country (in Europe) due to his show at the time. Not quite universally, but probably closer to a household name than any other living painter was at the time. Dunno how it was in other countries in Europe, but still. The man was relatively well known for paintings, paintings that were regarded well by the general audience (experts: dunno).
So while maybe he couldn't be selling his paintings for 1000s to the decently-off, there clearly was ample demand. If he truly wanted to make a boatload, he easily could have.
Related: the treasure trove could easily be sold 1 painting at a time. Just don't make it regular - not once a year, but sometimes 2 in 2 months, and then 5 years nothing. That really wouldn't spurs the value that much, if at all.
I think a lot of the responses to this are ignoring the things that were popular in the 90s that don't see a big spike of demand more recently.
Bob Ross was popular. Thomas Kinkade was popular. IMO it's doubtful Ross would've been as popular at retail in the 90s as Kinkade. One was a nice cute little educational show. One was "the painter of light" with a marketing engine around him. Both also had plenty of detractors from the "serious" art scene.
Why did Ross get positive associations through 2000s internet culture that Kinkade never did?
Which would you rather go buy now?
Was it just nostalgia, since he was relevant much more to the lives of the kids that grew up to create a lot of the internet culture of the time? Probably a big chunk of it.
But there's also just a certain right-place-right-time. Like, nobody seems to be going nuts about re-buying their childhood Pogs or even Beanie Babies. Ok, those were readily available at retail; Bob Ross wasn't. But Pokemon cards were too...
> He was reasonably popular at that time, sure, but Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
No, he was well-known already in early 90s (at least on my college campus), and his sayings were pre-internet memes. He was perfect match for slacker stoner culture
> cannot all be sold because they would flood the market and decrease their own value. So Bob Ross, Inc. is cleverly keeping them under lock and key and letting the scarcity drive prices up.
Personal pet-peeve.
And yes, I know it doesn't really matter to most people.
I guess you're the first person I've seen use it, so it can't rise to the level of pet peeve for me, but using "urks" instead of "irks" made me cringe on about as visceral a level!
People that say that sometimes irk me with their pedantry. You don't hear it so much anymore, though, as all the people who once cared are elderly or gone.
Language is mutable. I think the best thing you could do is let it go. Perhaps even ascribe a stronger meaning to this "incorrect" usage: it theoretically could be, but it won't be, because it can't be given the circumstances.
Sometimes people hide behind this detail in order to absolve themselves of responsibility, though. That’s not as benign as a mere shift in language. OP may have been pointing out responsibility rather than nitpicking language.
“We cannot pay you more, or we won’t be able to hit the margins the market expects from us this year.”
“We can’t license this sports event for wider audiences”
“We can’t sell all of Bob Ross’s paintings or their value would go down”
I promise you, there are countries out there where that type of person is widely looked down on (usually the countries that had to fight off colonizers).
Like I said, just look at countries which resisted colonization.
For example - one of the fundamental mechanics of colonization is to find people willing to sell out their countrymen for personal profit. While there are always a few people like this, it's far from the norm; and those people are remembered with searing hostility.
A specific example that comes to mind: British land-owners exacting high rents on Irish farmers would often seize their property and hold a local auction. The entire town would turn out, the original farmer would make a small token bid to buy back their farm, and no one would bid against them.
Ireland also invented boycotts, where the entire village would shun scummy landlords.
Egalitarianism isn't just a reaction to colonizers though - it's the default state of humanity [0].
And research shoes that placing material possessions at the centre of your life is inversely correlated to your emotional well-being [1]. Pretty hard to believe that this would be the default.
So, American culture is clearly twisted. It might not be the most perverse in the world... But it's up there. This is a fact well recognized in the world, and almost entirely ignored in America itself.
Yes, on an individual basis, Americans can be quite lovely. Friendly and well meaning, might go out of their way to help you, and so on. Sure. But the fact that Americans can really believe that humanity, at its core, is willing to sell out their neighbors for profit says everything about Americans and nothing about humanity.
Really? Just America? I know of no country, having lived in more than a couple of them, where people don't do what they can to make money or increase the value of what they have for personal economic benefit.
Americans are no less or more human than anyone else, and this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit no matter what direction it flows in or who its pointed at..
> where people don't do what they can to make money or increase the value of what they have for personal economic benefit.
That wasn't the argument. You've moved the goalposts to a different stadium.
What was claimed was that "milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls", and somehow, from that, you heard "people do what they can to make money for personal economic benefit". Curious.
> Americans are no less or more human than anyone else
No one said Americans aren't human, or less human.
> this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference
No one said it was inherent. In fact I said the opposite; that people are generally egalitarian unless warped.
> that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit
Nope. Countries have different characters, and it's okay to talk about it. Also, some countries - cough - have extremely powerful and capable groups that have been working for decades to warp the national character; say, by instilling rampant Islamophobia, or working to undermine critical thinking and general education.
I hope you ask yourself how you got this much wrong on a reading of a rather simple comment. Something clearly hit a nerve.
>What was claimed was that "milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls", and somehow, from that, you heard "people do what they can to make money for personal economic benefit".
Both things are in most cases essentially the same, and a person trying to get every possible dollar out of anything valuable for their personal gain indeed doing what they can to make money for themselves. This is in my experience a habit not at all unique to Americans..
That aside, you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people, which also happens to be one of the top countries in the world for charitable giving on a per capita basis and in absolute terms.
So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid, and so too is giving a particular, fashionable focus to making americans seem to be particularly warped people about this.
Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems. If you're from any number of other parts of the world, feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
I see no evidence of it. Nationalist idiocies, racist tendencies, propagandistic narratives and bad economic habits abount just about everywhere in the world, and in some countries much worse than in the United States, which itself has no shortage of differing opinions and critical thinkers.
It also (at least until the current orangutan came to power, again,) has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
Methinks your "different" opinions are of the standard issue Democrat Twitterati variety and are "critical" only in the sense of criticizing those you are told to hate, not in the "critical thinking" sense.
Further evidenced by the ridiculous claim that America was "one of the most welcoming countries on earth" before Trump - as if Harris didn't just run on a platform of being harsher on immigrants than Trump, or as if Biden didn't deport more immigrants than anyone ever before, or as if Obama wasn't nicknamed the deporter-in-chief, or as if every Dem admin for 17 years hasn't increased ICE funding.
You do know how to distinguish between the number of legal immigrants a country lets in and facilitates entry for vs their efforts at stopping illegal migrants?
I have my many criticisms of US immigration policy and how its ICE agency manages its part of that, but lets compare apples to apples before throwing shit on the whole bowl of fruit.
Also, just like the U.S, many other countries (including Mexico itself by the way) enforce deportations, border controls and militarized border security against illegal migrants. It's nothing unique to the United States. The current administration has skewed the trend with its harsh rhetoric and anti-migrant policing drives but yeah, there's no shortage of documented evidence showing that the U.S. has a long history of being exceptionally welcoming to immigrants by global average standards. It's a country literally built by them, whose demographic reflects this across the board as it does in only a few other countries worldwide.
Yes, let's compare the Democrats immigration policy to that of other developed countries.
Which countries are separating kids from their parents in their thousands, caging them in mesh, giving them foil sheets to sleep under, making them drink toilet water, and then losing track of them completely? Name one other.
> It's nothing unique to the United States
... US immigration policy is uniquely cruel, and racist, including when Democrats are in power.
> there's no shortage of documented evidence showing that the U.S. has a long history of being exceptionally welcoming to immigrants by global average standards
Every American is an immigrant, unless you're native American (who were genocided over hundreds of years). So, yeah I guess so. Doesn't really affect the current topic though.
> It's a country literally built by them
I think you're thinking of slaves. It was built by slaves first, and then immigrants.
> whose demographic reflects this across the board as it does in only a few other countries worldwide.
... And?
For the last couple decades, US immigration policy has been one of bipartisan brutality and atrocity. It's nice that America was a melting pot for the world; it's cool that there's a mixed demographic (though I don't know how cool actual native Americans are with it all). I love the Statue of Liberty and the poem under her - but that welcoming spirit isn't reflected in modern American policy, and hasn't been for quite some time.
Everything Trump is doing now is simply an extension of policies laid over the last few decades by both Democrats and Republicans. If Americans refuse to acknowledge that then the problem is never going to be fixed.
I'm not even going to bother replying to the other crap you piled on. As in your other comments elsewhere, you seem to selectively pick superficial, cliched ideological talking points and consider those to be a solid response.
Just one thing though: It's very easy to take a good look at the information available about the immigration policies of many countries, among them there being a number that are much worse than the United States, and much more xenophobic than a country that right up to the present, is filled with first, second, third and so fourth generation immigrants who completely integrate and participate enormously in its governments and economy.
> Both things are in most cases essentially the same
Lol, no. Not at all.
A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future.
A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
> you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people
I don't love to generalize - but it isn't untrue, and I didn't pretend not to be generalizing. I could point at any number of statistics to back that up, but here's the main one: 98% of American voters decided arming genocide wasn't a red line.
> So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid,
Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
> Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems.
I speak as someone who has traveled and lived in both. And America's racism and social problems are on a different level. I never claimed Europe or anywhere else was perfect; just that America is exceptional. And it is.
> feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line. "Israel!" ... Ok, that one was too easy. Name one other.
> it also ... at least until the current orangutan came to power ... has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Lol. I don't know where you've been the past 24 years, but that's an extremely ahistorical statement. The kids in cages, which you saw, during the Trump admin, were built by Obama and persisted under Biden. Obama laid the foundation for Trump's "Muslim ban". It's weird how people forget these facts, and get real stroppy about it when they're brought up.
> Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
You keep saying that, but it isn't actually true. The world has considered America the number one threat to global peace, stability and democracy for the past 22 years, and they are 100% correct to do so. There are countless reasons why - bombs dropped, dictators funded, climate damage, global propaganda, surveillance, wilful torture and other abuses of international humanitarian law, and so on.
To ignore all this because "generalizing bad" is what's actually absurd; and it's absurd that Americans can't grasp that. It's ridiculous to see them work themselves into a whataboutist lather when called out on any of it. Take a shred of responsibility for the national character which the whole world can see and which is threatening life on this planet in seven+ ways.
Your whole comment is so full of cherry-picked points, contrived arguments and bullshit in general that I don't know where to begin. You're generally arguing from bad faith and ideological fixation too.
Just a few of points though:
>A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future.
A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
Say what? You're comparing an average person trying to make ends meet (presumably in some other country) with very specific, powerful, corporate or government special interests in unique positions of power to do these things in the US? You do understand that other countries also have select powerful interests doing all those things and similar for the sake of financial extraction yes?
>And America's racism and social problems are on a different level.
On which continent have their been several major wars in just the last 125 years, with ethnic cleansing and genocide as an explicit part of their tragic landscape, often supported by all kinds of regional populations? This aside from many European states also having their own enormous migrant ghettos with persistent racial tension between said immigrants and their white European neighbors.
>Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line.
First, did you pull the 98% out of your ass or have you a source for whatever the hell you're even talking about in this context? Secondly, many other countries sell arms to governments that have practiced genocide. I don't consider Israel a genocidal state (though its current lunatic in power is pushing the boundary) but taking that aside, it receives arms deliveries from, among others, Germany, the UK, Italy and Canada. So?
>Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
This is such a mishmash of cherry-picked stupidity that I feel silly replying, but since i'm here: What the hell do Epstein, his girlfriend or Bill Gates have to do with the general statistical tendencies of charitable giving among Americans? They neither take away from these charitable giving and tax-funded foreign aid tendencies or stain them in any way. They are separate contexts with no basis for comparison.
Also, as mentioned above, many, many countries fund dictators, or sell them weapons or contribute to dropping bombs somewhere for assorted reasons.
Generalizing isn't entirely a bad thing, but the kind you're vomiting out here is plain idiotic, ideologically fixated and loaded with ridiculously selected arguments.
The only thing I illustrated was the bizarrely cherry-picked stupidity of your specific points. Arguing with people who replace rational analysis with ideological fetishism is tedious anyhow.
> usually the countries that had to fight off colonizers
Good Lord!
France and Blighty (to pick two examples) did their fair share of empire building, however I can assure you, they do not worship at the alter of capitalism in quite the way which is endemic to the USA.
> they do not worship at the alter of capitalism in quite the way which is endemic to the USA.
What were they like at the height of their empires? During their respective long slow declines? Did their people worship the worst of their colonists as national heroes? ...
And while they are not quite as Molochian as Americans today (no one said they are, in fact the argument was that America is rather exceptional) they certainly aren't as anti-capitalist as many others. Particularly when you look at the manner in which they pursue global economic interests.
The reason people think that Bob Ross didn't want the paintings he did for the show to be sold is because he said so. He considered them demos, not finished paintings, and you don't sell demos.
He was also famous and popular before the internet discovered him. The internet certainly boosted his visibility, though.
> “He was always happy to donate his paintings to fundraisers, or sell his work at a reasonable price,” she says. “Many people who own one acquired it decades ago.”
Any artist who wants to be able to pay their bills without doing anything besides "making art".
If you can convince giant bags of money pretending to be people that one of your paintings is worth several years worth of the median wage, it's no more a less a commodity than if you're selling hundreds of thousands of prints of the same image for $5 apiece.
On that point, I saw a pretty great documentary about Thomas Kinkade called "Art for Everybody" a year or so ago at a film festival. Was pretty fascinating. I won't give away too much but was really interesting to go into the man (and his other artwork) behind the facade.
Until it becomes apparent the people he loathes the most are the ones willing to pay him ungodly amounts of money for his "art"; so he relents and sells it to them anyways.
I don't knock Banksy for making a buck here and there. I can't see he even licenses any of his art for merch. He says all his art is free for non-commercial use. I don't think there's any commercial aspect to his work. When I briefly knew some of his graffiti friends in the early 2000s they were struggling like crazy to try and make a quid or two from their art. They were all doing art-for-art's-sake. They were selling their best pieces on eBay for peanuts to pay their bills, or to buy other art they wanted to own. I just regret not buying one of his first pieces when he was selling them for about 100 quid a piece o_O
Which is fascinating to think he wanted to mass produce art and then after he died, the same thing happened; all of his stuff that was still around ended up creating a scarcity and driving up the price of his stuff anyways.
If they were smart, what they would do is sell them directly to consumers who will cherish them and give the paintings good homes. Then make the buyers sign a contract of some sort that they can't be resold for X number of years. That way the paintings bring joy and value to others, while respecting Bob's wishes of not being a commodity.
And then they would be involved in lawsuits with normal people who didn't honor the contract. Legally okay, but would be a bad look for the foundation.
there's a documentary about this, and the people who own the rights screwed over Bob and are purely there to exploit him. they have nothing to do with his family.
I think that "I don't want people to just buy my art" is consistent with the persona of Bob Ross, at least presented on TV. Maybe he was a different person in private, I don't know.
But Bob Ross the personality trying to teach people The Joy of Painting? I think he would rather people paint their own than buy the ones he painted
> Today, 1,165 Bob Ross originals — a trove worth millions of dollars — sit in cardboard boxes inside the company’s nondescript office building in Herndon, Virginia.
This seems like a bit of a waste given that there's demand for them.
The scarcity makes the demand. I doubt there are that much people wanting low/average quality paintings, even if it has the signature of a person as famous as him. But the 3 of them are willing to spend a lot of money on it. If anyone could buy an original batmobile, people would grow tired of seeing them in the street and they would lose their appeal really quickly.
Most fans of Bob Ross would probably have painted something similar. What he teached was that the enjoyment came from the process and that anyone could paint similar low/average uninspired stuff.
I don’t care about art very much and I would be pay a thousand or two for one. I know that’s much but given that I’ve never bought a painting before and I don’t think I’m particularly unique, I believe this signals there is pretty large demand.
I paint myself occasionally some similarly uninspired stuff, and bar 2 painting I hung in the living room and corridor, I throw them away (or rather reuse the canvas) because I don't even consider them art but rather artisanal decorative items.
2 thousand can get you much more interesting paintings. There are many talented but barely known artists anywhere in the world waiting for you. You just have to visit galleries whenever you are visiting a town.
I found a friend's painting in the free pile at an opshop. Told them about it and they thought it was a hilarious - they'd sold it for $65.
I have the painting to another friend as inspiration about the value of art - they love it.
Too many people suggest to artists that they should monetise their work, which is kinda sad I think.
It is good to make art because you want to (assuming one can afford to), not because you want money or $status. If you want to chase money then that's fine too, but understand the negatives that come with that choice.
The thing with art is that there's always more of it getting created by people who either do it as a hobby or will accept low prices out of desperation to "follow their dreams," they're competing with all the existing art out there, and while some gets lost to natural disasters and neglect, the better stuff sticks around.
Perhaps, but unless one of them is Walt Disney, I've never heard of them - therefore their fame does not impact my valuation of their work. I can see myself spend 50 bucks on a (to me) unknown piece of art because it is pretty. Spending more would require an additional connection - fame of artist, depicts something dear to me, seems like a good investment, etc. etc... only being pretty isn't enough.
No, because he painted something that I find pleasant to look at and consider it worth money. The price is higher because of the artist's fame, that much is true - but that is always the case with art.
I mean, you're basically arguing about taste... Bob Ross was a lot more famous than most other artists, not in the least because many people liked what he produced.
He was more famous because he appeared on TV, and transfered/the joy of painting, not because of his paintings. They were unremarkable to say the least.
A lot of people are trying to make a living painting landscapes with the same painting for dummies style that Ross used (not invented). It seems counterproductive to give money to speculators for an unremarkable painting of a dead man when you can spend a fraction of that to buy a similar decorative painting and contribute to the income of someone who actually worked and spent time on it.
They would certainly go for more than that. Ross didn't paint anything I find even remotely interesting but for $1k, I would buy 20 or 30 Bob Ross paintings right now and sit on them too.
I can't imagine them selling for much less than $20k a painting with a name that everyone knows.
> that anyone could paint similar low/average uninspired stuff.
I hated this sentence. What is wrong with art that is actually, you know, pretty to look at. Obviously Bob Ross paintings aren't very complicated, as they're designed for amateurs to be able to follow along in the instructions. But I find many of his paintings quite beautiful, and if anything the joy in seeing how simple brush strokes can create such beautiful paintings.
Tracey Emin's "My Bed" "sculpture" sold for two and a half million pounds. So people pretending there is some high objective or moral difference between "high art" and "low/average uninspired stuff" are, frankly, full of themselves IMO.
There's wanting to own one as property, and then there's wanting to own a souvenir of an experience. Like a patch, or a t-shirt, or a trophy.
Maybe they should do some Bob Ross events and give the paintings away either as a prize or do a charity raffle. Shit make a foundation to get art supplies to underprivileged kids and use the sales to establish a trust for the foundation.
Curious how they give that information away like this. Therefore I suspect it is bogus, or at least phrased in that manner just to make it sound more quaint.
"Oh heres several millons worth of paintings sitting in cardboard boxes in our Bob Ross Inc. nondescript office building in Herndon, Virignia -- please dont break in and steal anything!"
If he didn't want them sold, he should have destroyed them. Because even if his current heirs decide to keep them locked up, eventually someone is going to come to the realization that they don't need to work anymore if they sell a few of them, and why would you spend your life working for someone else when you could just get rid of something that only takes up space to begin with?
I wondered also, but then I've read to the end of the article. The article seems to be a bit disingenuous, because the real, real reason seems to be, that the Bob Ross Inc. respects the wish of Bob Ross to not make his paintings a commodity.
Came here to make sure this point was made. Bob Ross Inc's only mission is to make money off a dead man and to ensure his family doesn't receive any of the proceeds.
> “He was about as uninterested in the actual paintings as you could possibly be,” says Kowalski. “For him, it was the journey — he wanted to teach people. The paintings were just a means to do that.”
That could be true. Though, someone is sitting atop a treasure trove, the value of which is pinned to the legend being promoted by this article.
For Bob Ross, I wonder whether he might've been too humble to consider that his shows touched many people, such that -- besides whatever personal creative journey he encouraged them on -- some might appreciate having a tangible, more direct link to him, of one of his own paintings.
I'm very surprised there's not a Bob Ross painting app. One which would have presets for every color, brush, and blade from the show. People could fire up the app and use their Apple Pencil or stylus to follow along.
I did that once on a boring Saturday. Used Procreate and a Pencil to follow along with a couple of shows. Had to pause it more than once to find & download a matching brush in Procreate. Was quite fun. I think a dedicated app would sell extremely well.
I think it would be very difficult—he does a lot with color mixing, and having multiple colors on a brush, that software painting solutions don’t support. And all of the color blending on the canvas that his wet-on-wet technique is based around…
Maybe this is the wrong site for this viewpoint, but I don't see what in the world the best damn AR/VR painting game in the world has over actually painting.
Like an expensive canvas is what, $20? And paint can be had for like $5-10 a tube, and unless you just slather the shit on your paintings, you can go quite a long ways on a tube.
Like I play Call of Duty because I don't actually want to experience a warzone. Who wouldn't want to actually paint?
> Like an expensive canvas is what, $20? And paint can be had for like $5-10 a tube
I think you're oversimplifying how much of a hassle painting can be. Sure, one canvas and one tube of paint cost you $25, but you also need to include brushes (duh), an empty jar for water, a palette or an old plate, an easel or a table where paint spills are not a problem, plus the time to set it all up, clean your brushes afterwards, and tear it down (unless you have an empty garage, which people in apartments typically don't). And then there are the lessons which, if you're a beginner, mean several one-hour chunks (and several canvases) until you feel even mildly comfortable on your own.
I think VR painting is to painting what Guitar Hero is to playing a guitar - you may not be a "real" painter afterwards, but as long as it's fun...
In the contemporary art market the stated prices are actually really low. Painters fresh out of art school at a good gallery focused on emerging artists will sell paintings for 10-20k these days.
I'm not sure I buy the premise that they're sitting around because selling them all would make them a commodity. They could auction one off every couple months. They could pick a handful to sell every year. Why hoard them?
These paintings sound almost perfect for an NFT art project (burn it and turn it into digital tokens), given that the quality of the art pieces is not super high, but there's huge cultural resonance. To be fair the idea is much older (Yves Klein, the Klein blue guy, Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle [0]).
I regret making that comment, even if right now the NFT craze appears over I'll have nightmares if it comes back and someone starts burning Bob Ross paintings (or anything else really)
I think NFTs have no credibility in the eyes of the public. Something akin to NFTs tracking real world ownership of physical things could work, but we already have that in the form of registries and deeds. Provenance is a solved problem, from a technical and social perspective.
The idea of “owning” a purely digital asset that anyone else can just make copies of (but not “own” according to some blockchain) just seems silly.
I just force my brain to think that he was such a good teacher that every TV student is so good that all produced art indistinguishable from his. That thought brings me joy and not the actual copyright blabla...
I don't know why the article and everyone here is coming away with the conclusion that Bob Ross didn't want his art to be sold.
A simpler reasoning is that there wasn't any demand for his paintings while he was alive. His show ran from 1983-1994 and he died in 1995. He was reasonably popular at that time, sure, but Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
Now there is a trove of 1,165 paintings which are no doubt valuable, but cannot all be sold because they would flood the market and decrease their own value. So Bob Ross, Inc. is cleverly keeping them under lock and key and letting the scarcity drive prices up.
> Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
No, he was just as well-known when his show was on the air. He was a household name, his paintings and style was known, and people talked about him enough to have opinions on whether he was an "artist" or just a TV show host.
I was going to call this anecdotal evidence based on it never appearing in the top 100 (or so) Nielson rated TV shows for a year, based on the lists for 1984-1995 here[0].
However, it looks like PBS never signed up for Nielson until 2009, so we have limited/no public data on viewership of The Joy of Painting (or Sesame Street, etc for that matter).
http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/2020/02/tvrg-ratings-histor...
There's a lot of TV shows out there, even in the 80s and 90s, and plenty of ways for celebrities to have their image and reputation bolstered. Ratings aren't reliable in trying to measure someone's notoriety.
Growing up in the late 80s/90s, and mostly outside of the US, I can't remember a time when I didn't know who Bob Ross was.
Inside the US, never heard of him until later 2000s or so as well. And watched PBS at times.
Did you grow up wealthy in the 80s? Most people didn’t have cable television back then, it was comparatively expensive and not available outside major metropolitan areas. Most people only had a half dozen TV channels or so, and sometimes Bob Ross was the only thing on TV worth watching. Everyone knew who he was.
We were not rich but had basic cable since 1979 or so. Maybe California was ahead on that front. My memory is that it only cost perhaps $10 a month in the 80s.
My experience was that accidentally tuning into Joy of Painting for about 45 seconds was enough to completely hook me (although I was not fully aware of this at the time).
There was a lot less tv in the 80s. If you didn’t have cable, then you just had a handful of channels. I didn’t watch Joy of Painting, but it was pretty hard not to notice the painting Afro guy when flipping through the extremely limited number of channels most people had access to.
My sense is that he was known to frequent PBS viewers (I remember him from before 2010) — but the whole Chia-fro thing and "happy clouds" or whatever meme-like thing that comes to mind definitely took him to the mainstream crowd with the internet.
I present the evidence of Family Guy episode _Fifteen Minutes of Shame_ airdate April 25, 2000 which had a Bob Ross bit. Bob Ross was part of the cultural zeitgeist long before the 2010s Internet memes. That has brought a new generation to him, but that's just bringing GenZ in line with the others.
Agree. Few people watch PBS. The readership here is not representative.
I think a lot of people who were or had kids pre-internet streaming probably watched PBS, at least sometimes.
Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Joy of Painting, Arthur, Bill Nye, Barney, Teletubbies, etc.
It's not like there were a lot of TV choices for kids if their parents couldn't afford cable (and some stations like Cartoon Network didn't even exist until 1992+, I think even Disney Channel was a premium channel like HBO).
Like Sesame Street, Bob Ross was more famous than PBS. I didn’t even know what America was and I knew Bob Ross.
That's wild.
In the mid 90s when Bob Ross died, 95% of American preschoolers had seen Sesame Street, at the time a show not available anywhere besides PBS.
Bob Ross was known in my country (in Europe) due to his show at the time. Not quite universally, but probably closer to a household name than any other living painter was at the time. Dunno how it was in other countries in Europe, but still. The man was relatively well known for paintings, paintings that were regarded well by the general audience (experts: dunno).
So while maybe he couldn't be selling his paintings for 1000s to the decently-off, there clearly was ample demand. If he truly wanted to make a boatload, he easily could have.
Related: the treasure trove could easily be sold 1 painting at a time. Just don't make it regular - not once a year, but sometimes 2 in 2 months, and then 5 years nothing. That really wouldn't spurs the value that much, if at all.
I think a lot of the responses to this are ignoring the things that were popular in the 90s that don't see a big spike of demand more recently.
Bob Ross was popular. Thomas Kinkade was popular. IMO it's doubtful Ross would've been as popular at retail in the 90s as Kinkade. One was a nice cute little educational show. One was "the painter of light" with a marketing engine around him. Both also had plenty of detractors from the "serious" art scene.
Why did Ross get positive associations through 2000s internet culture that Kinkade never did?
Which would you rather go buy now?
Was it just nostalgia, since he was relevant much more to the lives of the kids that grew up to create a lot of the internet culture of the time? Probably a big chunk of it.
But there's also just a certain right-place-right-time. Like, nobody seems to be going nuts about re-buying their childhood Pogs or even Beanie Babies. Ok, those were readily available at retail; Bob Ross wasn't. But Pokemon cards were too...
> He was reasonably popular at that time, sure, but Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
No, he was well-known already in early 90s (at least on my college campus), and his sayings were pre-internet memes. He was perfect match for slacker stoner culture
> cannot all be sold because they would flood the market and decrease their own value. So Bob Ross, Inc. is cleverly keeping them under lock and key and letting the scarcity drive prices up.
Personal pet-peeve.
And yes, I know it doesn't really matter to most people.
Still urks me.
"CANT OR WONT!?"
I guess you're the first person I've seen use it, so it can't rise to the level of pet peeve for me, but using "urks" instead of "irks" made me cringe on about as visceral a level!
"I don't know, can you?"
People that say that sometimes irk me with their pedantry. You don't hear it so much anymore, though, as all the people who once cared are elderly or gone.
Language is mutable. I think the best thing you could do is let it go. Perhaps even ascribe a stronger meaning to this "incorrect" usage: it theoretically could be, but it won't be, because it can't be given the circumstances.
Literally.
Sometimes people hide behind this detail in order to absolve themselves of responsibility, though. That’s not as benign as a mere shift in language. OP may have been pointing out responsibility rather than nitpicking language.
“We cannot pay you more, or we won’t be able to hit the margins the market expects from us this year.”
“We can’t license this sports event for wider audiences”
“We can’t sell all of Bob Ross’s paintings or their value would go down”
A way into this: it's not personal choices.
Milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls, and willfully decreasing the value is not a possibility.
Try leaving America some time.
I promise you, there are countries out there where that type of person is widely looked down on (usually the countries that had to fight off colonizers).
I don't personally know of any, but I'd like to. Do you have some examples to share?
> I don't personally know of any
Like I said, just look at countries which resisted colonization.
For example - one of the fundamental mechanics of colonization is to find people willing to sell out their countrymen for personal profit. While there are always a few people like this, it's far from the norm; and those people are remembered with searing hostility.
A specific example that comes to mind: British land-owners exacting high rents on Irish farmers would often seize their property and hold a local auction. The entire town would turn out, the original farmer would make a small token bid to buy back their farm, and no one would bid against them.
Ireland also invented boycotts, where the entire village would shun scummy landlords.
Egalitarianism isn't just a reaction to colonizers though - it's the default state of humanity [0].
And research shoes that placing material possessions at the centre of your life is inversely correlated to your emotional well-being [1]. Pretty hard to believe that this would be the default.
So, American culture is clearly twisted. It might not be the most perverse in the world... But it's up there. This is a fact well recognized in the world, and almost entirely ignored in America itself.
Yes, on an individual basis, Americans can be quite lovely. Friendly and well meaning, might go out of their way to help you, and so on. Sure. But the fact that Americans can really believe that humanity, at its core, is willing to sell out their neighbors for profit says everything about Americans and nothing about humanity.
0 - https://medium.com/inside-of-elle-beau/yes-our-ancient-ances...
1 - https://time.com/22257/heres-proof-buying-more-stuff-actuall...
Really? Just America? I know of no country, having lived in more than a couple of them, where people don't do what they can to make money or increase the value of what they have for personal economic benefit.
Americans are no less or more human than anyone else, and this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit no matter what direction it flows in or who its pointed at..
> where people don't do what they can to make money or increase the value of what they have for personal economic benefit.
That wasn't the argument. You've moved the goalposts to a different stadium.
What was claimed was that "milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls", and somehow, from that, you heard "people do what they can to make money for personal economic benefit". Curious.
> Americans are no less or more human than anyone else
No one said Americans aren't human, or less human.
> this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference
No one said it was inherent. In fact I said the opposite; that people are generally egalitarian unless warped.
> that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit
Nope. Countries have different characters, and it's okay to talk about it. Also, some countries - cough - have extremely powerful and capable groups that have been working for decades to warp the national character; say, by instilling rampant Islamophobia, or working to undermine critical thinking and general education.
I hope you ask yourself how you got this much wrong on a reading of a rather simple comment. Something clearly hit a nerve.
>What was claimed was that "milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls", and somehow, from that, you heard "people do what they can to make money for personal economic benefit".
Both things are in most cases essentially the same, and a person trying to get every possible dollar out of anything valuable for their personal gain indeed doing what they can to make money for themselves. This is in my experience a habit not at all unique to Americans..
That aside, you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people, which also happens to be one of the top countries in the world for charitable giving on a per capita basis and in absolute terms.
So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid, and so too is giving a particular, fashionable focus to making americans seem to be particularly warped people about this.
Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems. If you're from any number of other parts of the world, feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
I see no evidence of it. Nationalist idiocies, racist tendencies, propagandistic narratives and bad economic habits abount just about everywhere in the world, and in some countries much worse than in the United States, which itself has no shortage of differing opinions and critical thinkers.
It also (at least until the current orangutan came to power, again,) has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
> differing opinions and critical thinkers
> current orangutan
Methinks your "different" opinions are of the standard issue Democrat Twitterati variety and are "critical" only in the sense of criticizing those you are told to hate, not in the "critical thinking" sense.
Further evidenced by the ridiculous claim that America was "one of the most welcoming countries on earth" before Trump - as if Harris didn't just run on a platform of being harsher on immigrants than Trump, or as if Biden didn't deport more immigrants than anyone ever before, or as if Obama wasn't nicknamed the deporter-in-chief, or as if every Dem admin for 17 years hasn't increased ICE funding.
You do know how to distinguish between the number of legal immigrants a country lets in and facilitates entry for vs their efforts at stopping illegal migrants?
I have my many criticisms of US immigration policy and how its ICE agency manages its part of that, but lets compare apples to apples before throwing shit on the whole bowl of fruit.
Also, just like the U.S, many other countries (including Mexico itself by the way) enforce deportations, border controls and militarized border security against illegal migrants. It's nothing unique to the United States. The current administration has skewed the trend with its harsh rhetoric and anti-migrant policing drives but yeah, there's no shortage of documented evidence showing that the U.S. has a long history of being exceptionally welcoming to immigrants by global average standards. It's a country literally built by them, whose demographic reflects this across the board as it does in only a few other countries worldwide.
> lets compare apples to apples
Yes, let's compare the Democrats immigration policy to that of other developed countries.
Which countries are separating kids from their parents in their thousands, caging them in mesh, giving them foil sheets to sleep under, making them drink toilet water, and then losing track of them completely? Name one other.
> It's nothing unique to the United States
... US immigration policy is uniquely cruel, and racist, including when Democrats are in power.
> there's no shortage of documented evidence showing that the U.S. has a long history of being exceptionally welcoming to immigrants by global average standards
Every American is an immigrant, unless you're native American (who were genocided over hundreds of years). So, yeah I guess so. Doesn't really affect the current topic though.
> It's a country literally built by them
I think you're thinking of slaves. It was built by slaves first, and then immigrants.
> whose demographic reflects this across the board as it does in only a few other countries worldwide.
... And?
For the last couple decades, US immigration policy has been one of bipartisan brutality and atrocity. It's nice that America was a melting pot for the world; it's cool that there's a mixed demographic (though I don't know how cool actual native Americans are with it all). I love the Statue of Liberty and the poem under her - but that welcoming spirit isn't reflected in modern American policy, and hasn't been for quite some time.
Everything Trump is doing now is simply an extension of policies laid over the last few decades by both Democrats and Republicans. If Americans refuse to acknowledge that then the problem is never going to be fixed.
I'm not even going to bother replying to the other crap you piled on. As in your other comments elsewhere, you seem to selectively pick superficial, cliched ideological talking points and consider those to be a solid response.
Just one thing though: It's very easy to take a good look at the information available about the immigration policies of many countries, among them there being a number that are much worse than the United States, and much more xenophobic than a country that right up to the present, is filled with first, second, third and so fourth generation immigrants who completely integrate and participate enormously in its governments and economy.
> Both things are in most cases essentially the same
Lol, no. Not at all.
A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future.
A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
> you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people
I don't love to generalize - but it isn't untrue, and I didn't pretend not to be generalizing. I could point at any number of statistics to back that up, but here's the main one: 98% of American voters decided arming genocide wasn't a red line.
> So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid,
Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
> Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems.
I speak as someone who has traveled and lived in both. And America's racism and social problems are on a different level. I never claimed Europe or anywhere else was perfect; just that America is exceptional. And it is.
> feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line. "Israel!" ... Ok, that one was too easy. Name one other.
> it also ... at least until the current orangutan came to power ... has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Lol. I don't know where you've been the past 24 years, but that's an extremely ahistorical statement. The kids in cages, which you saw, during the Trump admin, were built by Obama and persisted under Biden. Obama laid the foundation for Trump's "Muslim ban". It's weird how people forget these facts, and get real stroppy about it when they're brought up.
> Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
You keep saying that, but it isn't actually true. The world has considered America the number one threat to global peace, stability and democracy for the past 22 years, and they are 100% correct to do so. There are countless reasons why - bombs dropped, dictators funded, climate damage, global propaganda, surveillance, wilful torture and other abuses of international humanitarian law, and so on.
To ignore all this because "generalizing bad" is what's actually absurd; and it's absurd that Americans can't grasp that. It's ridiculous to see them work themselves into a whataboutist lather when called out on any of it. Take a shred of responsibility for the national character which the whole world can see and which is threatening life on this planet in seven+ ways.
Your whole comment is so full of cherry-picked points, contrived arguments and bullshit in general that I don't know where to begin. You're generally arguing from bad faith and ideological fixation too.
Just a few of points though:
>A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future. A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
Say what? You're comparing an average person trying to make ends meet (presumably in some other country) with very specific, powerful, corporate or government special interests in unique positions of power to do these things in the US? You do understand that other countries also have select powerful interests doing all those things and similar for the sake of financial extraction yes?
>And America's racism and social problems are on a different level.
On which continent have their been several major wars in just the last 125 years, with ethnic cleansing and genocide as an explicit part of their tragic landscape, often supported by all kinds of regional populations? This aside from many European states also having their own enormous migrant ghettos with persistent racial tension between said immigrants and their white European neighbors.
>Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line.
First, did you pull the 98% out of your ass or have you a source for whatever the hell you're even talking about in this context? Secondly, many other countries sell arms to governments that have practiced genocide. I don't consider Israel a genocidal state (though its current lunatic in power is pushing the boundary) but taking that aside, it receives arms deliveries from, among others, Germany, the UK, Italy and Canada. So?
>Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
This is such a mishmash of cherry-picked stupidity that I feel silly replying, but since i'm here: What the hell do Epstein, his girlfriend or Bill Gates have to do with the general statistical tendencies of charitable giving among Americans? They neither take away from these charitable giving and tax-funded foreign aid tendencies or stain them in any way. They are separate contexts with no basis for comparison.
Also, as mentioned above, many, many countries fund dictators, or sell them weapons or contribute to dropping bombs somewhere for assorted reasons.
Generalizing isn't entirely a bad thing, but the kind you're vomiting out here is plain idiotic, ideologically fixated and loaded with ridiculously selected arguments.
I don't think I could ask for a better way of precisely illustrating my points. Thanks, I guess. Good luck
The only thing I illustrated was the bizarrely cherry-picked stupidity of your specific points. Arguing with people who replace rational analysis with ideological fetishism is tedious anyhow.
> usually the countries that had to fight off colonizers
Good Lord!
France and Blighty (to pick two examples) did their fair share of empire building, however I can assure you, they do not worship at the alter of capitalism in quite the way which is endemic to the USA.
> they do not worship at the alter of capitalism in quite the way which is endemic to the USA.
What were they like at the height of their empires? During their respective long slow declines? Did their people worship the worst of their colonists as national heroes? ...
And while they are not quite as Molochian as Americans today (no one said they are, in fact the argument was that America is rather exceptional) they certainly aren't as anti-capitalist as many others. Particularly when you look at the manner in which they pursue global economic interests.
> He was reasonably popular at that time, sure, but Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
He remained popular after his death. I can remember seeing memes of Bob Ross as early as 2008.
Yeah, I grew up watching reruns of his show on PBS in the early 00's. It was much more fun to watch when home sick than Antiques Roadshow.
What, The Price Is right not good enough for you?!
When the price of cars became more than four digits (and the first digit was not a "3") I bailed on "Price is Right". Too hard.
lol, that’s fair :-)
Going back further, from what I saw he had notoriety even back in 2003/2004 on 4chan.
Peep Show was calling him "God" in 2003:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74sDcT7Z3M0
Yeah. He’s being rediscovered, but at his death, he’d already spent 20 years being discovered in the first place.
Genuinely curious to your age, as I'm suspecting some recency bias? As Bob Ross certainly was well known throughout Europe way before the 2010s.
If you were growing up without cable in the US when he was on the air, PBS was one of like five channels you could watch.
All us kids in the US knew him growing up in the 80’s, as he was on just before the cartoons on Saturday mornings.
The reason people think that Bob Ross didn't want the paintings he did for the show to be sold is because he said so. He considered them demos, not finished paintings, and you don't sell demos.
He was also famous and popular before the internet discovered him. The internet certainly boosted his visibility, though.
Another explanation is that there is significantly more value in doing licensing deals:
https://negosh.com/brand/54d96e91-3646-49bd-9226-53265743157...
Yeah, this was what happened when Warhol died, the market was flood with thousands of works.
They are for sure selling them morsel by morsel and milking top value for as long as they can. Any other way and they are losing money.
> Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
Uh, what?
Bob Ross was very popular in the early 90s while he was still alive.
So much so that he even did a promo for MTV.
https://youtu.be/PuGaV-BvPlE
While the article is interesting, the lede is buried literally at the very end of the article:
> Ultimately, the real reason there aren’t more Bob Ross paintings up for sale is that the artist never wanted them to be a commodity.
Unless you listen to a scholar:
> “He was always happy to donate his paintings to fundraisers, or sell his work at a reasonable price,” she says. “Many people who own one acquired it decades ago.”
I'm not clear on the use of the word "commodity" here.
I think if the artist doesn't want the work to be highly commercialized, then maybe the better way would be to have no copyright on their works?
What artist does though?
Any artist who wants to be able to pay their bills without doing anything besides "making art".
If you can convince giant bags of money pretending to be people that one of your paintings is worth several years worth of the median wage, it's no more a less a commodity than if you're selling hundreds of thousands of prints of the same image for $5 apiece.
The painter of light
On that point, I saw a pretty great documentary about Thomas Kinkade called "Art for Everybody" a year or so ago at a film festival. Was pretty fascinating. I won't give away too much but was really interesting to go into the man (and his other artwork) behind the facade.
Thank you, I found this very insightful.
I'd pay a decent amount of some of his darker paintings.
Banksy?
Until it becomes apparent the people he loathes the most are the ones willing to pay him ungodly amounts of money for his "art"; so he relents and sells it to them anyways.
I don't knock Banksy for making a buck here and there. I can't see he even licenses any of his art for merch. He says all his art is free for non-commercial use. I don't think there's any commercial aspect to his work. When I briefly knew some of his graffiti friends in the early 2000s they were struggling like crazy to try and make a quid or two from their art. They were all doing art-for-art's-sake. They were selling their best pieces on eBay for peanuts to pay their bills, or to buy other art they wanted to own. I just regret not buying one of his first pieces when he was selling them for about 100 quid a piece o_O
Warhol
Which is fascinating to think he wanted to mass produce art and then after he died, the same thing happened; all of his stuff that was still around ended up creating a scarcity and driving up the price of his stuff anyways.
He doesn't get to decide that. They belong to the people now. Let them have it.
Who are "the people" you're referring to?
Everyone outside the cardboard boxes they’ve got them in, who might experience joy from seeing the paintings IRL.
Seems like he does, because those who have them are honoring his wishes.
If they were smart, what they would do is sell them directly to consumers who will cherish them and give the paintings good homes. Then make the buyers sign a contract of some sort that they can't be resold for X number of years. That way the paintings bring joy and value to others, while respecting Bob's wishes of not being a commodity.
And then they would be involved in lawsuits with normal people who didn't honor the contract. Legally okay, but would be a bad look for the foundation.
[flagged]
Then it's just handing them out to people who already are made and not normal people.
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Or they could just not. You’re not entitled to them.
I don’t think it really matters either way though.
there's a documentary about this, and the people who own the rights screwed over Bob and are purely there to exploit him. they have nothing to do with his family.
People who hold them, sued Bob Ross’s son for using “Ross” i.e. his last name.
Slimy people.
I think that "I don't want people to just buy my art" is consistent with the persona of Bob Ross, at least presented on TV. Maybe he was a different person in private, I don't know.
But Bob Ross the personality trying to teach people The Joy of Painting? I think he would rather people paint their own than buy the ones he painted
If you want to get sappy, Bob would probably want you to paint your own version of the piece he made that feel like buying.
> Today, 1,165 Bob Ross originals — a trove worth millions of dollars — sit in cardboard boxes inside the company’s nondescript office building in Herndon, Virginia.
This seems like a bit of a waste given that there's demand for them.
The scarcity makes the demand. I doubt there are that much people wanting low/average quality paintings, even if it has the signature of a person as famous as him. But the 3 of them are willing to spend a lot of money on it. If anyone could buy an original batmobile, people would grow tired of seeing them in the street and they would lose their appeal really quickly.
Most fans of Bob Ross would probably have painted something similar. What he teached was that the enjoyment came from the process and that anyone could paint similar low/average uninspired stuff.
I don’t care about art very much and I would be pay a thousand or two for one. I know that’s much but given that I’ve never bought a painting before and I don’t think I’m particularly unique, I believe this signals there is pretty large demand.
Because he was a celebrity?
I paint myself occasionally some similarly uninspired stuff, and bar 2 painting I hung in the living room and corridor, I throw them away (or rather reuse the canvas) because I don't even consider them art but rather artisanal decorative items.
2 thousand can get you much more interesting paintings. There are many talented but barely known artists anywhere in the world waiting for you. You just have to visit galleries whenever you are visiting a town.
Maybe it’s indirectly because he’s a celebrity but moreso because the show brought me tremendous joy and I’d like to own some of that.
I found a friend's painting in the free pile at an opshop. Told them about it and they thought it was a hilarious - they'd sold it for $65.
I have the painting to another friend as inspiration about the value of art - they love it.
Too many people suggest to artists that they should monetise their work, which is kinda sad I think.
It is good to make art because you want to (assuming one can afford to), not because you want money or $status. If you want to chase money then that's fine too, but understand the negatives that come with that choice.
The thing with art is that there's always more of it getting created by people who either do it as a hobby or will accept low prices out of desperation to "follow their dreams," they're competing with all the existing art out there, and while some gets lost to natural disasters and neglect, the better stuff sticks around.
2k I think could get you two paintings by some of the most famous current water color artists(going off memory)
Perhaps, but unless one of them is Walt Disney, I've never heard of them - therefore their fame does not impact my valuation of their work. I can see myself spend 50 bucks on a (to me) unknown piece of art because it is pretty. Spending more would require an additional connection - fame of artist, depicts something dear to me, seems like a good investment, etc. etc... only being pretty isn't enough.
If you want to think about it as art as just a thing that's made
Canvas or paper will be a few dollars to maybe 10
Paints maybe another 10 per painting by the end.
Then maybe a professionals time for like 100/hr. Idk if you can even hire a plumber that cheap.
A 2 hour painting should cost maybe 400 by an unknown but professional.
No, because he painted something that I find pleasant to look at and consider it worth money. The price is higher because of the artist's fame, that much is true - but that is always the case with art.
I mean, you're basically arguing about taste... Bob Ross was a lot more famous than most other artists, not in the least because many people liked what he produced.
He was more famous because he appeared on TV, and transfered/the joy of painting, not because of his paintings. They were unremarkable to say the least.
A lot of people are trying to make a living painting landscapes with the same painting for dummies style that Ross used (not invented). It seems counterproductive to give money to speculators for an unremarkable painting of a dead man when you can spend a fraction of that to buy a similar decorative painting and contribute to the income of someone who actually worked and spent time on it.
If you really want to support working artists, go to craft shows. They're a good time and you'll get to meet the artist.
They would certainly go for more than that. Ross didn't paint anything I find even remotely interesting but for $1k, I would buy 20 or 30 Bob Ross paintings right now and sit on them too.
I can't imagine them selling for much less than $20k a painting with a name that everyone knows.
It’s honestly not that much money. Paintings from artists who are not as famous as Bob Ross can go for thousands.
1,165 of anything is not very much.
Rolex makes 1,000,000 new watches per year, and the wait lists are years-long.
There is definitely enough demand for all of those paintings to be sold for more than you'd think
> that anyone could paint similar low/average uninspired stuff.
I hated this sentence. What is wrong with art that is actually, you know, pretty to look at. Obviously Bob Ross paintings aren't very complicated, as they're designed for amateurs to be able to follow along in the instructions. But I find many of his paintings quite beautiful, and if anything the joy in seeing how simple brush strokes can create such beautiful paintings.
Tracey Emin's "My Bed" "sculpture" sold for two and a half million pounds. So people pretending there is some high objective or moral difference between "high art" and "low/average uninspired stuff" are, frankly, full of themselves IMO.
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fuck off with this, there’s decades long discussion about what constitutes “art” and what doesn’t,
Consensus is that anything that makes you feel is art, and his paintings make people feel, t doesn’t matter the reasons why.
There's wanting to own one as property, and then there's wanting to own a souvenir of an experience. Like a patch, or a t-shirt, or a trophy.
Maybe they should do some Bob Ross events and give the paintings away either as a prize or do a charity raffle. Shit make a foundation to get art supplies to underprivileged kids and use the sales to establish a trust for the foundation.
Curious how they give that information away like this. Therefore I suspect it is bogus, or at least phrased in that manner just to make it sound more quaint.
"Oh heres several millons worth of paintings sitting in cardboard boxes in our Bob Ross Inc. nondescript office building in Herndon, Virignia -- please dont break in and steal anything!"
If he didn't want them sold, he should have destroyed them. Because even if his current heirs decide to keep them locked up, eventually someone is going to come to the realization that they don't need to work anymore if they sell a few of them, and why would you spend your life working for someone else when you could just get rid of something that only takes up space to begin with?
> given that there's demand for them.
Yes, just think of the commercial opportunity!
I wondered also, but then I've read to the end of the article. The article seems to be a bit disingenuous, because the real, real reason seems to be, that the Bob Ross Inc. respects the wish of Bob Ross to not make his paintings a commodity.
They put him in a Mountain Dew ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q51bomzSQ_s
The Kowalskis sued to exclude Bob Ross from the company bearing his name in the final days of his life, when he was struggling with cancer.
So let me carefully suggest that Bob Ross Inc. is not as benevolently looking out to preserve the heritage and legacy of Bob Ross as you might think.
And had threatened legal action towards his son for using his family name as a painter.
Came here to make sure this point was made. Bob Ross Inc's only mission is to make money off a dead man and to ensure his family doesn't receive any of the proceeds.
Thank you for posting this.
Many people assume it's his family that are the cut throats and don't know the fully story of how the company went to another family.
Fortunately he left behind detailed instructions showing you how to make a Bob Ross original you can call your own
That's funny but of course that was his entire point!
This feels like it lines up nicely with the core principles of free software.
Happy little decade of tutorials.
or you can have chatGPT make one to your specifications in his style...
now you can make videos of him painting it, too
Is it a Bob Ross original though?
And what if an AI watches it?
Make it a startup with your own domain so I can block it please
(2021)
Previous discussion when submitted by rmason:
It’s nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27014367 - May 2021 (85 comments)
> “He was about as uninterested in the actual paintings as you could possibly be,” says Kowalski. “For him, it was the journey — he wanted to teach people. The paintings were just a means to do that.”
That could be true. Though, someone is sitting atop a treasure trove, the value of which is pinned to the legend being promoted by this article.
For Bob Ross, I wonder whether he might've been too humble to consider that his shows touched many people, such that -- besides whatever personal creative journey he encouraged them on -- some might appreciate having a tangible, more direct link to him, of one of his own paintings.
>some might appreciate having a tangible, more direct link to him
Painting your own painting while watching his show and letting him guide you through, would be a pretty tangible, personal, and direct link to him.
Agreed, I was thinking that, but I could also imagine someone wanting something he made, which is why I said "more".
There were plans for a Bob Ross Wii game that sadly never came to fruition. Maybe it can be revisited in AR/VR.
I'm very surprised there's not a Bob Ross painting app. One which would have presets for every color, brush, and blade from the show. People could fire up the app and use their Apple Pencil or stylus to follow along.
I did that once on a boring Saturday. Used Procreate and a Pencil to follow along with a couple of shows. Had to pause it more than once to find & download a matching brush in Procreate. Was quite fun. I think a dedicated app would sell extremely well.
I think it would be very difficult—he does a lot with color mixing, and having multiple colors on a brush, that software painting solutions don’t support. And all of the color blending on the canvas that his wet-on-wet technique is based around…
VR painting in general sounds cool. I wonder if there's anything you could do with painting 3D shapes.
Yes: https://openbrush.app/
Maybe this is the wrong site for this viewpoint, but I don't see what in the world the best damn AR/VR painting game in the world has over actually painting.
Like an expensive canvas is what, $20? And paint can be had for like $5-10 a tube, and unless you just slather the shit on your paintings, you can go quite a long ways on a tube.
Like I play Call of Duty because I don't actually want to experience a warzone. Who wouldn't want to actually paint?
> Like an expensive canvas is what, $20? And paint can be had for like $5-10 a tube
I think you're oversimplifying how much of a hassle painting can be. Sure, one canvas and one tube of paint cost you $25, but you also need to include brushes (duh), an empty jar for water, a palette or an old plate, an easel or a table where paint spills are not a problem, plus the time to set it all up, clean your brushes afterwards, and tear it down (unless you have an empty garage, which people in apartments typically don't). And then there are the lessons which, if you're a beginner, mean several one-hour chunks (and several canvases) until you feel even mildly comfortable on your own.
I think VR painting is to painting what Guitar Hero is to playing a guitar - you may not be a "real" painter afterwards, but as long as it's fun...
Being able to do it without having physical materials and tools on hand is more convenient.
Yeah, you can get by with very simple tools and materials, but a digital version doesn't limit you to only the simple things.
No drips.
No cleanup.
No need for figuring out what to do with the canvases.
Any color of paint you want, possibly including ones like "polka dots" or "tiled faces of Nic Cage" or "color-cycling rainbow".
And your brush strokes can be 3d contours of virtual paint hanging in the air instead of marks on a flat canvas.
An Bob Ross-like painting with "tiled faces of Nic Cage" would be awesome!
VR is not going to be able to reproduce the experience of applying pen to paper or brush to canvas. So does it even really work as useful practice?
0 gamification, no incentives and no in-app purchases with real painting.
.. are these supposed to be the upsides? Or were you just answering what's different, haha.
Yeah, just a sarcastic answer about the differences :D
Having played with VR painting? I'm genuinely shocked that it's not a killer app for VR. Feels like it should be BIGGER than it is.
For those curious about AR/VR painting, check out Vermillion: https://vermillion-vr.com/
In the contemporary art market the stated prices are actually really low. Painters fresh out of art school at a good gallery focused on emerging artists will sell paintings for 10-20k these days.
The paintings are nice, but I think his ASMR content is worth way more.
Fond memories of zoning out on the couch watching Bob beat the devil out of a 3" brush.
His only nearest competitor was Mother Angelica's Religious Catalog on EWTN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLEVtOGGC5U
As a kid I enjoyed his mentor, too: Bill Alexander.
WIELD THE ALMIGHTY BRUSH!
And you fire in the color!
I'm not sure I buy the premise that they're sitting around because selling them all would make them a commodity. They could auction one off every couple months. They could pick a handful to sell every year. Why hoard them?
Fun video about the same topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDs3o1uLEdU
These paintings sound almost perfect for an NFT art project (burn it and turn it into digital tokens), given that the quality of the art pieces is not super high, but there's huge cultural resonance. To be fair the idea is much older (Yves Klein, the Klein blue guy, Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle [0]).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_de_Sensibilit%C3%A9_Pictu...
Why.. why would you even think of that..?
I regret making that comment, even if right now the NFT craze appears over I'll have nightmares if it comes back and someone starts burning Bob Ross paintings (or anything else really)
I think NFTs have no credibility in the eyes of the public. Something akin to NFTs tracking real world ownership of physical things could work, but we already have that in the form of registries and deeds. Provenance is a solved problem, from a technical and social perspective.
The idea of “owning” a purely digital asset that anyone else can just make copies of (but not “own” according to some blockchain) just seems silly.
I would say, it is unassailably impossible.
A genuine, authentic Bob Ross painting is not original.
I'm fine with that. Bob Ross Must Be Protected At All Costs.
I just force my brain to think that he was such a good teacher that every TV student is so good that all produced art indistinguishable from his. That thought brings me joy and not the actual copyright blabla...
When the licensing expo was in town here in Las Vegas, two separate attendees told me that Bob Ross licensed products fly off the shelf.
can I interest you in a Xavier Cugat?
When did clickbait headlines become acceptable here?
What does “clickbait headline” mean to you?