Why the Smithsonian now owns paintings by Bob Ross - but few others do!

Trust me - you'll enjoy this! 

It's a happy little video about what happened to all those Bob Ross paintings that he painted - before, during and after "The Joy of Painting".

Published by the New York Times on 12 Jul 2019, it's already had more than 6 million views.

Did you know you can't buy a Bob Ross Painting?

That's because it has never occurred to Bob Ross Inc. to sell them.  The company which looks after his artistic estate is based  P.O. Box 946, Sterling, VA 20167 - but the building is closed to visitors and the paintings are all boxed up inside.

Bob used to paint three paintings for the famous The Joy of Painting television show

• one before the show - as a reference
• one during the show - in 26 minutes flat. Sometimes he introduced last minute improvisations. 
• one after the show - for use in the "how to" instruction books

According to an analysis by the website FiveThirtyEight, Mr. Ross painted in 381 of the 403 episodes of the show (the rest featured a guest). If three versions were made of each of those paintings, at least 1,143 originals would exist. Bob Ross Inc. estimates that it has 1,165 paintings stored on site. New York Times

However his paintings never seem to come on the market.

This article perhaps best reflects why people love Bob Ross and want to buy his paintings - I Spent Two Months Trying to Buy a Bob Ross Painting Because Nothing Makes Sense Anymore

The New York Times set out to solve the big mystery of why you cannot buy a Bob Ross and wanted find out how many paintings there were - see Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them.

The consensus now is that there are 1,143 paintings associated with the show which were painted by Bob Ross.  It's surmised that there may also be paintings in existence which he painted as an instructor outside the TV show and in demonstrations - but that number is unknown. There are also the paintings he made before he started on TV.

The Smithsonian offered to take some of his paintings - and as a result, in 2019,  Bob Ross Inc. donated an array of artwork and artifacts to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the paintings and other objects officially became part of the museum’s permanent collection on March 22. You can see the paintings that were donated in the New York Times article.

Two exhibitions of paintings by Bob Ross

This year Bob Ross has paintings in two exhibitions in the USA.  Quite how the paintings were extracted from Bob Ross Inc. is a story which still needs to be told....

NEW PAGE: Art on Television

I very much enjoy reviewing the episodes of the various art competitions on UK television and seem to have accumulated rather a lot of posts on the topic.

So much so I've decided to create a brand new page on my blog which is purely about my "Art on Television" blog posts.  It can be accessed

• via the menu tabs at the top of the page if viewed on a desktop or tablet
• in the hamburger menu if viewed on a smartphone

The "Art on Television" Page includes 

• all the series I've reviewed of programmes by both Sky Arts and the BBC - which are listed below. 
• Every blog post I've written is also listed on the new page

Sky Arts - Artist of the Year

• Portrait Artist of the Year 2020 - which is in the can but won't be broadcast until 2020
• Portrait Artist of the Year 2019 - which aired earlier this year on Sky and is currently being repeated on Channel 4 on Saturday evenings at 5pm.
• Landscape Artist of the Year 2019 - which has just finished filming the semi-finals and will be broadcast in the Autumn. The really big (this is a pun!) question was always whether a very pregnant Kate Bryan would be there all the way until the end. If you go to Kate Bryan's Instagram account you can find out what happened!

a mashup on Instagram of pics tagged #landscapeartistofthe year

• Portrait Artist of the Year 2018 - the first series I watched via the NOW TV app
• Landscape Artist of the Year 2018 - which I enjoyed enormously and got to know a number of the artists as a result!

BBC - programmes involving artists and artisans

The Big Painting Challenge

• BBC Celebrity Painting Challenge - which was the format I'd been advocating for some time - but sadly with no 'normal' people involved
• BBC: The Big Painting Challenge 2018 (Series 3)
• BBC: The Big Painting Challenge 2017 (Series 2)
• BBC: The Big Painting Challenge 2015 (Series 1)

BBC: The Arts and Crafts House (2018)
BBC: Home is Where the Art is (Series 2)
BBC: Home is Where the Art is (Series 1)

Home is Where the Art is: Series 2 - Call for Artists

The BBC is looking for "talented passionate artists" for its second series of "Home is Where the Art is" - with another 15 episodes each featuring 3 artists and/or crafts people.

Home is Where the Art is returning for a second series.

The type who can:

• work to a brief
• create something fabulous for a buyer you've never met

I'd add the type that:

• don't mind not getting paid (except a notional sum for materials) if you are not selected by the client
• don;t get a named credit in the end credits of the programme (of which more below!)

They also want to "showcase how rewarding commissioning art can be" but I guess that's more for the client than the artist.

Some of you may recall my previous posts on the first series including

• Home Is Where the Art Is - needs a makeover! in which I highlighted
• my concern about the absence of any name credit in text in the programme
• explain why it should be mandatory that all participants who are professional artists get a named credit.
• Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 1-5) my attempt to redress the balance on credits
• Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 6-10) (as above)
• Commission an artist: 'Home is where the Art Is' (Episodes 11-15) - this includes my overall conclusions about the show

My blog posts are the most comprehensive with respect to the artists featured. They include:

• website and social media links for the artists who participated in each episode
• contact details are embedded in the artist's name
• commissions details are provided if self evident

If you're interested in taking part, I suggest you 

• take a look at my posts as the episodes from the First Series are no longer available online (although doubtless will be made available again just before the Second Series is broadcast).  You'll get a sense of the variety of skills and competences involved.
• ponder on the fact that they are filming in October and November - which can be very busy months for those who are preparing/creating stock for the run-up to Christmas
• note that they especially like artists who live in the North. (Some of you will have worked out that this BBC Studios production is based in Manchester! It also means you save them money on the travel expenses budget as most of the locations of clients will also be in the north of England i.e. north of Birmingham!).
• note also you need to do a face to face interview via Skype - although some artists are suggesting that they should use Facetime instead.

If you're still interested, you can contact the BBC via artistsartshow@bbc.co.uk

If you don't hear from them by September, you've not been chosen.

The Lack of NAMED CREDITS Issue

I am becoming increasingly annoyed by the television programmes which use professional people as their "reality stars" and yet faily to give them any credit and/or pay them.

I very much RECOMMEND that artists should decline to take part if there is no formal written agreement that their name is featured in the end credits. Otherwise there is no record of you ever having taken place in the show - other than my blog posts!

Here's what I had to say in one of my blog posts as to why NAMED CREDITS are important

For all those saying that the names are said in the programme so why do they need the credits?

Well a number of reasons:

• to respect the work of professionals - just as the credits at the end of the programme respect the work of the people behind the scenes who make the programme
• two of the three are unpaid - and providing a named credit is fair exchange for the many hours given for free to make content for the BBC. Otherwise it's the equivalent of working for free for the exposure - but without the exposure in terms of a name to enable people to find you!
• the names might be said - but nobody spells them out. In the first week there are THREE artists where I had to keep replaying the segment to listen to the names again and again - and even then finally identified them using information from elsewhere in the programme (eg "Gallery Windermere paintings cattle" got one of them).
• the BBC is hypocritical and ignores its own rules when it suits it - such as making sure it gets great guests on the Graham Norton show - because they are only there to promote their latest whatever - and always do!

Sky Arts and some other production companies who are commissioned by the BBC got their act together on this issue after I named and shamed their programmes....

I will continue with the naming and shaming until such time as the BBC "gets it" and makes it routine that all professionals who feature in television programmes get a named credit at the end of the show.

The dedicated Facebook group

The original artists from Series 1 who are on Facebook have set up a dedicated Facebook Group which continues to highlight their activities - and market their art!

You can find it at Home Is Where the Art Is artists 2019

Interestingly, a number of other "arts and crafts people" also decided to make good use of the programme title and there are now a fair few pages about "Home is Where the Art is" on Facebook - but have nothing to do with the programme!

and finally......

If you get selected, make sure that your website, Facebook Page (not personal account), Twitter account and Instagram account - if you have them - are all looking good and are bang up to date BEFORE your episode is broadcast.

A number of artists wrote to me to thank me for the fact I featured their websites in my blog posts and said what a difference it made to traffic to their website - and of course more commissions!

JMW Turner's Travelling Watercolour Paints

Yesterday I visited the Permanent Collection in the NEW Collection Gallery at the Royal Academy of Arts (one of the new developments). This is free to visit for everybody.

I viewed (amongst other items) the travelling watercolour set of JMW Turner RA which is currently part of a temporary display. Below you can see my photos of:

• his travelling watercolour set - with cakes of paint and a section for paper for trying out colours before he used them
• his porcelain watercolour colour mixing palette
• the inevitable colour swatch of colours - to remind himself of what they looked like when clean

The travelling watercolour set of JMW Turner RA ca. 1842
Dimensions: 296 mm x 317 mm x 9 mm

The set was given to the RA by Given by Mrs Hilda Félicité Finberg in 1940

Watercolour palette owned by J.M.W. Turner, R.A.
175 mm x 148 mm x 4 mm

This porcelain watercolour palette was also given to the RA by Mrs Hilda Félicité Finberg in 1940. It's in remarkably good condition if a little scratched.

The imprint on Turner's palette for watercolours

It's clearly marked as being made by RB Newsom. This is what the online resource British artists’ suppliers, 1650-1950 maintained by the National Portrait Gallery has to say about this gentleman.

Richard Bowden Newsom, 14 Wellington St, Borough, London 1834-1837, oilman and artists’ colourman; 7, 8 and 9 Leyland St, Vauxhall 1837, candle maker and preparer of canvas and mill boards for artists; 9-10 Leland St, Lambeth 1839 candlemaker and colourman. Post-1839, see below.

Richard Bowden Newsom (1806-80) led a varied career over many years in retailing and manufacturing. He was christened on 22 January 1806 at St Mary Scarborough, the son of Joseph Newsom and Sarah Maria, née Bowden. He was apprenticed in 1820 to his father, a grocer and tallow chandler of St Albans, Hertfordshire, and a Citizen and Cordwainer of London, and was admitted in 1827 to the freedom of the Company of Cordwainers. His father set up as a tea dealer in the Borough in 1823.

Richard Bowden Newsom married Mary Wright in 1830 and they had eight surviving children. He traded from 14 Wellington St, Borough as an oilman and artists’ colourman from 1834 to 1837, and was specifically listed as an artists’ colourman in Pigot’s 1836 London directory. He was followed at this address by Frank Livett, oilman and artists’ colourman, in 1838. Newsom moved to 7, 8 and 9 Leyland St, Vauxhall, where he took out insurance as a patent wax candle maker and preparer of canvas and mill boards for artists in May 1837 (London Metropolitan Archives, Sun Fire Office policy registers, 564/1250680). In Pigot’s 1839 directory he was described as an artist, colourman and manufacturer of improved imperial wax and sperm candles, his last listing as a colourman.

His partnership with William Bayley the younger as goldbeaters at 79 White Lion St, Pentonville, and woodcutters in Hoxton, was subject to bankruptcy proceedings in 1860 (London Gazette 5 June 1860). Described as of Orpington, he was made bankrupt again in 1865, when in partnership with William Maslen and Thomas Tillam, gas apparatus manufacturers (London Gazette 7 February 1865). In census records he can be found in Lambeth in 1841, in Plaistow in 1851 as a ‘collector wine trade’ and in 1871 in Orpington as a retired grocer. He died in January 1880 at the age of 73, leaving an estate worth under £100.

Activities as an artists’ supplier: A porcelain watercolour palette once owned by J.M.W. Turner can be dated to the mid-1830s since it bears an oval printed label: R.B. NEWSOM/ 14 BOROUGH/ Requisites for/ Drawing & Painting. (Royal Academy, 03/7070). (see British artists' suppliers, 1650-1950 - N)

Watercolour swatch taken from travelling watercolour watercolour set owned by JMW Turner

This is described by the as the Watercolour test paper taken from travelling watercolour box owned by J.M.W. Turner, R.A.

Their photo on the website is considerably lighter than mine. I'm wondering if they're trying to give the impression of what it would have looked like when paper was white. So I had a go at changing the colour of the paper today - as viewed in a dimmish gallery - to one which was lighter and brighter.

Watercolours if paper is nearer to white (adjusted via Photoshop Levels)

The colours of the watercolour pans he used are as follows:

TOP ROW (left to right)

• Carmine
• Purple Madder
• Purple Madder
• Orange Chrome
• Vermillion
• Permanent Blue

ROW 2 (left to right)

• Burnt Sienna
• Burnt Sienna
• Brown Madder
• Yellow Ochre
• Raw Sienna
• Cobalt (Blue)

ROW 3 (left to right)

• Ivory Black
• Purple Carmine?
• Crimson Lake
• Roman Ochre
• Vandyke Brown
• empty space

ROW 4 (left to right)

• Burnt Umber
• Intense Brown Madder
• empty space
• empty space
• empty space
• green colour no name

ROW 5 (left to right)

• Burnt Umber
• Intense Brown Madder
• indecipherable writing (a mix?)
• Olive Green
• Yellow Lake
• Lae Lake

ROW 6 (left to right)

• Indigo
• Indigo (lighter)
• Yellow Lake
• Brown Pink
• Gamboge
• Lae lake

You can see these items for yourself in the new Permanent Collection Gallery at the Royal Academy of Arts - which the RA seems determined to keep obscure as I can't find a reference to the space on their website. 

A gem of an art collection and maybe a Titian?

This morning I went to see a painting and found an extremely impressive art collection as well.  You can see both at Apsley House and the permanent collection - like those at the Wallace Collection and the Courtauld - is an absolute gem.

A painting from the Titian Workshop

The painting is called Orpheus enchanting the animals. It celebrates the civilizing power of music and its capacity to create peace. English Heritage have been working on its conservation for the last 18 months - and they are now confident of attributing the painting to the workshop of Titian (1490-1576).

Orpheus Enchanting the Animals AFTER TREATMENT
(c) English Heritage, The Wellington Collection, Apsley House

The ancient Greek god and poet Orpheus is seen charming the animals by playing the a Lira di Bracchia which was a four stringed instrument popular in the 1560’s in Venice when the painting was made. His music has united the Lion and the Unicorn who are traditional foes.

There are a lot of animals in the painting - everything from iguanas and turtle doves to dragons, dogs and tortoises!

Orpheus hanging on the wall of the Waterloo Gallery

In 2018 the decision was made to conserve Orpheus Enchanting the Animals. The conservation involved:

• removal of the old, yellowed varnish with swabs dipped in solvent mixtures. 
• a specialist liner relined the painting as the old lining canvas was failing. 
• old damages filled with chalk putty and retouched with easily removable, synthetic pigments which will not discolour like oil paint does
• finally the painting was revarnished. 

Conservator Alice Tate-Harte restores 'Orpheus Enchanting the Animals'  
Working on the Conservation
(English Heritage | Apsley House)

The quality of the figure can now clearly be seen as the removal of dirty varnish revealed some subtlety in the shading and modelling of the figure.

New art historical research also found

• An old inventory number was discovered on the back which linked it to the Spanish Royal Collection. This placed the painting in the Duke of Infantado’s collection in Spain from 1601 (meaning that its previous attribution to an artist called Padovanino is now unsustainable since he was only 13 when this was written!)
• infrared examination of the work revealed an underdrawing - but also pentimento (significant changes between the underdrawing and the final painting). 

Some experts now believe that, at the very least, the figure and the red cloth are of sufficient quality to be painted by Titian himself.

The question of attribution is so tricky but by looking at technical and historical evidence we were able to pin it down at least to Titian’s workshop, although the process in Titian’s studio was very collaborative and Titian may well have done some of the underpainting or added some finishing touches. It is now over to connoisseurs of Titian to decide. Alice Tate-Harte, Fine Art Conservator, English Heritage 

The Apsley House Collection

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND art fans visit the art collection hung on the walls of this very prominent house. I had no idea that Apsley House has what is called the "the Spanish Gift".

These are 82 paintings which were removed from the Spanish Royal Collection by Napoleon and then rescued from Napoleon by the Duke of Wellington who tried to return them to the Spanish King.

King Ferdinand VII however considered that the Duke of Wellington had rescued Spain from the imperial ambitions of Napoleon and he was gifted the paintings - which became known as "The Spanish Gift".  They now form the core of the permanent art collection of Apsley House

This important collection of fine art, includes paintings by Velazquez, Goya, Titian, Rubens, Brueghel, Jan Steen, Sir Thomas Lawrence alongside an absolutely outstanding display of porcelain and silver (I thought it more posh than Buckingham Palace!). 

I came away with the impression of a house which has an outstanding art collection.

The Waterseller of Seville by Diego Velaquez

Entering the Ark by Jan Brueghel the Elder

Danae by Diego Velaquez

See Wellington's Titians revealed to be the real deal which talks about the conservation work done on this painting which proved that this is the painting which Velaquez sold direct to the Spanish King Philip II.

Apsley House

Apsley House is located at Hyde Park corner was purchased in 1817 by the 1st Duke of Wellington after his victory at Waterloo. 

As the victor of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he had been voted £700,000 by Parliament to build a new ‘Waterloo Palace’. Instead of embarking on a new building, however, he submitted an anonymous bid to buy Apsley House (from his elder brother) for £40,000 to help resolve his brother’s financial difficulties.

The house became known as ‘Number 1 London’ although more conventionally it's located 149 Piccadilly, Hyde Park Corner, London, W1J 7NT. It is open Wednesday-Sunday from April until 22 December.

You can read more about on the Apsley House website about

• the history of the house
• the collection