Bob Ross, prolific daytime television painting instructor who charmed the world with his serene monologues, continues to make the world a better place 20 years after his death. His estate recently sold one of his paintings at an auction to support PBS and public media — and the work of art fetched over $1 million.
On last week’s 2025 finale of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, Oliver asked the Bob Ross estate to auction off one of the artist’s paintings. “Cabin at Sunset,” which the iconic painter made on his PBS series “The Joy of Painting” during season 10 in 1986, ended up selling for $1,044,000 after an incredible 35 bids.
This isn’t the first of Ross’ paintings that have sold in support of PBS, also known as the Public Broadcasting System, which has been stripped of nearly all its funding by the Trump administration. In early November, Bonhams Los Angeles auctioned off three of Ross’ other paintings, also made on his show, to support American Public Television.
Bonhams sold Ross’ 1993 painting “Winter’s Peace” for $318,000, and the 1990 paintings “Cliffside” and “Home in the Valley” sold for $229,100 and $114,800 respectively. Those three paintings were, according to Variety, part of a group of 30 works by Ross that will be sold over the next year in support of American Public Television and their mission to financially support public TV stations nationwide.
Oliver’s auction — which includes many other cool and wacky items like a chance to meet Oliver in NYC, a screen-worn jockstrap that belonged to Russell Crowe (??), and wax versions of various presidents — raised nearly $1.54 million for the Public Media Bridge fund, which will assist public media nationwide in securing the funds necessary to keep stations going in the aftermath of the Trump admin’s decision to effectively close down the Corporation for Public Broadcasting after eliminating $1.1 billion from their overall budget.
“We’ve actually accumulated a bunch of weird artifacts on this show over the years that we could definitely auction off to raise some much needed money,” Oliver said on the finale episode. “I am proud to announce Last Week Tonight’s first ever auction in aid of public media. This is real!”
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Photo by Acey Harper/Getty Images.
Lex Briscuso is a film and television critic and a freelance entertainment writer for IGN. You can follow her on Twitter at @nikonamerica.