Bob Ross’s John Oliver auction raises more than $1.5 million for PBS
No Mistakes: The Happy Trees of the late Bob Ross is about to once again help in public broadcasting. On last week’s 2025 finale of “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver,” the host convinced Bob Ross’ family to auction off other paintings of the PBS TV stars to support public media. And it paid off: Ross’s “A Cottage at Sunset,” which he painted for a Season 10 episode of the PBS show “The Joy of Painting” in 1986, sold for about $1,044,000 after 35 showings.
With bidding closing Monday night at midnight ET, this marked a new auction record for a Bob Ross painting. Earlier this month, Bonhams Los Angeles auctioned off three more of Ross’s “Joy of Painting” works, in support of American Public Television – the company that continues to distribute “Joy of Painting.” On November 11, “Winter Peace” (1993) sold for $318,000, while “Cliffside” (1990) sold for $229,100, and “Home in the Valley” sold for $114,800. All told, those three paintings brought in $662,000, and are now dwarfed by this new figure.
On the Nov. 16 episode of “Last Week Tonight,” Oliver detailed how the Trump administration and Congress’ decision to cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting earlier this year severely impacted radio and TV stations, especially in rural areas. That’s why the show was launched.”John Oliver’s Junk‘, a website containing 65 items (mostly from the show) put up for bidding in support of the public broadcast – including ‘Cabin at Sunset’.
All told, the auction raised nearly $1.54 million for the Public Media Bridge Fund, which is helping local public broadcasters temporarily find new money in the wake of the CPB shutdown.
The Bob Ross painting, of course, represented the majority of that amount. But other major items included the chance to have someone’s photo appear in a graphic over Oliver’s shoulder during an episode (plus two VIP tickets to a live show), which netted $100,025. A trip to New York to meet Oliver netted $51,600, while a case of autographed “SauvignJohn” wine netted $13,025.
Other items included a Russell Crowe jockstrap (“worn by Russell Crowe in the major motion picture Cinderella Man and later purchased by Last Week Tonight with John Oliver,” during the show’s fifth season, as part of Crowe’s “The Art of Divorce; the auction in which Crowe sold his personal belongings to pay for his divorce”), which received $21,000; and a “Mrs. Cabbage Oliver” (“John Oliver’s on-screen wife, married during an on-screen wedding officiated by Steve Buscemi. Part of the ninth season of the show Last Week Tonight about the AI-generated art in which John marries a cabbage in the studio”), which posted a bid of $11,111.
Also: A large gold-plated recreation of President Lyndon Johnson’s balls (“Scrotum Statue of President Lyndon Johnson, part of the 12th Presidential Libraries”) fetched $25,500, while prices for five wax Presidents of the United States ranged from $6,000 (Bill Clinton) to $3,333 (William Henry Harrison). Golden Adidas sneakers (“Golden sneakers that John Oliver promised to wear in a Season 2 episode of “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” if scandal-plagued FIFA president Sepp Blatter steps down”) earned $5,148.
“We’ve really collected a bunch of weird artifacts at this show over the years that we can certainly auction off to raise some much-needed funds,” Oliver said at last week’s show. “I’m proud to announce last week the first-ever Public Media Aid Auction. It’s real!” Proceeds will go to the Public Media Bridge Fund, which helps local public broadcasters temporarily find new money in the wake of CPB’s closure.
In the case of Bonhams’ auctions, those three paintings were part of 30 works by Bob Ross that will be sold over the next year, with American Public Television directing all of its proceeds to support public television stations across the country.