Germany's First Bob Ross Auction Will Aid US Public Television

A Bob Ross painting will cross the auction block in Germany for the first time on December 5, when Ketterer Kunst in Munich sells Mountain Splendor (1986), estimated at €40,000–€60,000 ($46,800–$70,200). The seller is American Public Television (APT), and every euro of the proceeds goes back to the broadcaster.

The idea came from Joan Kowalski, president of Bob Ross, Inc., who organized the charitable sale to support US public television stations after a Republican-dominated Congress, at the behest of Donald Trump's administration, cut $9 billion from previously approved government funding.

Why this particular painting?

Ross painted Mountain Splendor live on camera, during season seven, episode eight of The Joy of Painting. That detail matters to collectors. Ketterer Kunst points out that Ross typically made three versions of each composition: one in preparation, one on live television, and one for his instructional books. The live-painted canvases are the most coveted.

The work has sat in storage for decades and emerges in "exceptionally well-preserved condition," the auction house says in press materials. Bidders can inspect it in person first: it tours Ketterer Kunst's showrooms in Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich from November 8 through December 4.

How high could the bidding go?

Recent results suggest the estimate may be conservative. Ross's paintings have fetched as much as $1 million at benefit auctions — late-night comedian John Oliver sold Cabin at Sunset, painted for a 1986 episode, at that level last year.

Among public auction houses listed on Artnet's price database, Ross's auction record stands at $787,900. The 1990 canvas Change of Seasons achieved that figure at Bonhams Skinner in January, against a $60,000 high estimate — more than thirteen times the top end. That night the auctioneer raised roughly $1.3 million for APT with the sale of three Ross paintings. Last November, Bonhams offered three of a planned 30 Ross canvases; they sold for a combined $600,000, all of it going to APT.

One private seller is aiming even higher. Minnesota gallery Modern Artifact is asking $9.85 million for A Walk in the Woods, painted on the show's very first episode.

What does this change for bidders?

It opens the Ross market to German buyers directly, and taps a genuine local audience. Ross's show debuted on German television in 2001 and still airs regularly; Samsung TV Plus Germany launched the Bob Ross Channel auf Deutsch this year.

"Bob Ross has inspired millions of people to take up painting and has long since been an icon of pop culture," Robert Ketterer, owner and auctioneer, said. "With Mountain Splendor, we're auctioning off a piece of television history. What makes it so special is the fact that people can still watch the artist create this painting today. The fact that we're able to offer an original for the first time in Germany—and at the same time support public television in the U.S.—makes this auction particularly special to us."

Jim Dunford, CEO and president of APT, framed the sales as a way of converting Ross's global fandom into funding. "Bob Ross is one of America's most beloved cultural exports, and audiences across the globe love his work as much as viewers here in the States do," Dunford said. "These auctions turn that worldwide affection for Bob into real support for local public television stations, and we are deeply grateful to Bob Ross Inc. for making it possible."

The American appetite for Ross shows no sign of fading. The Joy of Painting ran 403 episodes from 1983 to 1994. Owen Wilson played a fictionalized Ross in the 2023 film Paint, which ARTnews critic Shanti Escalante-de Mattei called "a flaw-filled film." A 2021 Netflix documentary on Ross's estate battle drew a rebuke from the estate itself, which called it "inaccurate and heavily slanted."

If Mountain Splendor follows the pattern of the Bonhams Skinner sale, Munich could deliver APT its biggest European windfall yet — and set the template for future Ross benefit auctions outside the US.