10 Grieving Details Surrounding The Death Of Bob Ross, America’s Happiest Painter

6 /10 Multimillion Dollar Enterprise

In each episode of The Joy of Painting, host Bob Ross took 27 minutes to paint a landscape.

He guided viewers through the process, using his soothing voice instead of the screaming noises he used to make during his time as a drill sergeant – and entertaining commentary.

Believe it or not, Bob didn’t get paid for his performance on the show, as it was only a platform for a marketing campaign for the company’s painting supplies, merchandise, and instructional videos. By 1991, the company was worth $15 million.

5 /10 Some 30,000 Paintings

Throughout 31 seasons, The Joy of Painting aired 403 episodes; Bob painted in 381 of them. He painted three versions of the same artwork for every episode; before, during, and after filming.

From the episode count alone, he would produce more than 1100 paintings, but his total output was much more than that.

Bob also painted during charity auctions, events, and seminars between his works for the show, producing some 30,000 paintings, more than double the number Picasso ever made.

4 /10 Robust Demand

Despite the large number of artworks credited to him, collectors and fans have difficulties finding any of them in the open market.

According to multiple art dealers, there has been a robust demand for his artworks indeed.

Bob’s paintings are nowhere to be found; they are rare no because the artist only made a few, but mainly due to nearly all of them being in possession of few people.

Major auction houses like Christie’s and Sotheby’s have no sales history of his artwork. On eBay, only three sales turned up – two of them are of dubious origin.

3 /10 In Cardboard Boxes

As it turned out, all the paintings Bob made in the show are properties Bob Ross, Inc.

Since it is the company, instead of the man himself, maintains ownership of the artworks, then whoever owns the company also has the paintings; in this case, the owner is Joan Kowalski, daughter of Annette and the current president of Bob Ross Inc.

All his paintings, a collection of artworks worth millions of dollars now sit in cardboard boxes in the company’s building in Herndon, Virginia.

2 /10 Lymphoma

No one will argue that Bob Ross was as tough as they come, but his health declined so much during the early 1990s that he was convinced he would die early.

Bob had a heart attack in the mid-1980s and fought against lymphoma during his last several years.

The show was canceled so that Bob could focus on improving his condition. Bob Ross, one of the best-known American painters, finally succumbed to the disease on July 4, 1995, at 52.

1 /10 Television Artist

The funeral for Bob Ross was relatively small, attended only by around 25 of his family members and closest friends at Woodlawn Cemetery in the suburbs of Orlando.

After paying their respects, the funeral made its way to the gravesite, where the gleaming aluminum coffin was interred beside his father and mother.

The tombstone was nothing fancy; it is a small, flat, inconspicuous square engraved with a logo that resembles his head. In addition to his name, birth date, and death date, there are only two words: Television Artist.