From 1983 to 1994, just a year
before his death, American painter and art instructor Bob Ross enthralled
audiences with his show “The Joy of Painting” on PBS, where he demonstrated
speed-painting of fantastic landscapes within a half-hour using the “alla prima”
or “wet-on-wet” oil paint technique. From a TV idol he would transition to
being an internet icon when episodes of his show began streaming online,
immortalizing his many catchphrases like “Happy little trees,” “beating the
brush,” and uncommon paint shades like “cadmium yellow.” But the hundreds of
paintings Ross did for his show never saw public exhibit beyond their TV appearances;
until now.
As Forbes tells it, around two dozen individual landscape paintings by
Bob Ross are being put up in display in a solo art exhibit for the late artist
in the Franklin Park Arts Center at Purcellville, Virginia. The event, “Happy
Accidents: An Exhibit of Original Bob Ross Paintings” is being organized by the
art center and Bob Ross Inc., the company marketing art supplies and
instructional books used and written by Ross himself, with the painting
featured being among hundreds of such works done by him in and out of his PBS
show, many kept in storage at nearby Herndon.
Fans of Ross, both from his TV
and internet meme phases, will be pleased to know that the exhibit, which
opened September 10, is free of charge and is held not far from Washington, DC
for accessibility. It is a prime opportunity to get an in-depth and lengthy
view of the paintings of the painter, who once remarked that he never intended
to publicly exhibit his works, seeing as many of them were already getting plenty
of exposure on media (via TV replays, then video streaming) as he painted them.
While Bob Ross was already a household
name thanks to the syndication of “The Joy of Painting,” more current
generations knew of him thanks to his internet meme status, which nominally
began in 2015 after the Twitch live-stream service posted episodes of the show
back-to-back in a marathon that lasted nine days. YouTube also hosts “The Joy
of Painting” in its library, with each episode featuring at least one painting done
by Ross, whose wet-on-wet method enabled him to “correct” missteps in
brushstrokes on the canvas by repurposing them as something else, leading to
his famous expression that “There are no mistakes; just happy accidents.” It is
not a bad legacy for a former Air Force sergeant who resigned because he did
not like to raise his voice, and found a higher calling in painting simply beautiful landscapes. The exhibit runs until October 15.
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