Ross, Bob, 1942-1995

Robert Norman Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was an American painter and art instructor who created and hosted The Joy of Painting, an instructional television program that aired from 1983 to 1994 on PBS in the United States and CBC in Canada. Born in Daytona Beach, Florida, Ross joined the United States Air Force in 1961, rising to the rank of master sergeant. During his time at the military, he developed a passion for oil painting. He studied the art from Bill Alexander's show The Magic of Oil Painting, and eventually his income from painting outgrew his military salary. Retiring from the Air Force in 1981, he was discovered by Annette Kowalski, who had attended one of his sessions while he was working as a tutor. She and her husband helped Ross pool together money to set up a new company: Bob Ross Inc. In 1982, a station aired his art class as a pilot, and several PBS stations signed up for The Joy of Painting soon after. One such station, WIPB, employed him to host the show in Muncie, Indiana beginning in 1983. The show features him instructing viewers on how to create landscape art using the quick, wet-on-wet oil painting technique with a limited palette. It ran until 1994, and Ross died a year later at the age of 52. His legacy endures as an icon in popular culture, and rerun episodes of The Joy of Painting are still broadcast to this day. Although he intended to pass on his whole oeuvre to family members, the Kowalskis (as Bob Ross Inc.) successfully contested this in court. Bob Ross Inc. later made a deal with his half-brother Jimmie Cox to become the legal proprietors of his name and likeness.