Ever Wonder What Happened to All of Bob Ross’s ‘Happy Little Paintings’? More Than 1,100 of Them Are Holed Up in a Virginia Warehouse

Bob Ross painted three versions of every artwork that appeared
on the Joy of Painting: one prior to the episode, for a
visual reference; one during the taping itself; and one afterword,
for instructional booklets.

There were over 400 episodes of the show, only a few of which
didn’t feature a new Ross painting. (Ooccasionally he would host a
guest who would paint a picture). Conservatively, that means there
are at least 1,100 original Ross paintings floating around in the
world.

But where are they?

Recently, a group of New York Times reporters set out to locate the works.

They ended up at a huge warehouse in Herndon, Virginia, which is
the headquarters of Bob Ross, Inc., a
humble outfit that owns and stores the artist’s paintings, sells
memorabilia, and fields countless requests from people who want to,
say, put Ross’s face on mints or socks or even a waffle maker. The
paintings are not for sale.

In a short video report produced by the Times, Joan
Kowalski, the president of Bob Ross, Inc.,
explained that while the company does indeed store Ross’s many
works—around 1,165 of them—they lack the resources to do so
properly. The video shows the paintings stacked in everyday
cardboard boxes, piled together in a bland office space without
much of a filing system.

“They’re not ‘climate-controlled,’” Kowalski explains with air
quotes, adding that it’s not “white glove service.”

Fortunately, some of them are about to get some special
attention. After receiving numerous letters from ardent Ross fans,
the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington recently acquired
a handful of Ross’s paintings for its permanent collection. The
institution also added a stepladder used by the artist on the
Joy of Painting and two handwritten notebooks he kept for
the second and third seasons of the show.

“The hardest part was choosing the paintings,” Eric Jentsch, a
sports and entertainment curator for the museum told the
Times.

He and fellow curator Ryan Lintelman made a pilgrimage to Bob
Ross Inc. to select works that they felt exemplified his style and
achievements, including polarized mountainscape from 1988 (titled
On a Clear Day) and a moody waterfall picture from 1994
(Blue Ridge Falls).

As of now, the museum has no plans to display the paintings.

The post Ever Wonder What Happened to All of Bob Ross’s
‘Happy Little Paintings’? More Than 1,100 of Them Are Holed Up in a
Virginia Warehouse appeared first on artnet News.