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JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

A painting by the late artist Bob Ross could be yours if you have a spare $10 million. The particular work for sale, titled "A Walk In The Woods," was the very first that he made for his TV show, "The Joy Of Painting." Bob Ross would go on to paint hundreds of canvases in front of the camera, but this is just one of a handful that have been up for sale since his death in 1995. NPR's Emily Olson tells us why.

EMILY OLSON, BYLINE: Bob Ross didn't just talk about painting, he actually showed his viewers step by step how to make a landscape scene come alive.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE JOY OF PAINTING")

BOB ROSS: And there's no secret to this. Anybody can paint. All you need is a dream in your heart, a little practice.

OLSON: He typically made three paintings for each of his shows, one as a template, one for the camera and a third afterwards for use in instructional materials. So if you do the math, that means Ross painted well over 1,100 canvases for "The Joy Of Painting," and that was just for the show. He said he painted around 30,000 works of art over his lifetime. And yet...

RYAN NELSON: One of the toughest finds is to try to find an original Bob Ross painting.

OLSON: That's Ryan Nelson, the owner of Modern Artifact gallery in Minneapolis. It's one of the few places where you can find original Ross works up for sale. Nelson said Ross often just gave away his paintings to people, people who didn't always realize the kind of treasures they had on their hands.

NELSON: I can't tell you how many times I've bought paintings from other people that have found them at their local thrift stores.

OLSON: Roughly 1,200 of the original Ross paintings are being stored by his surviving company, Bob Ross Inc. Kowalski says she can imagine how Ross might have reacted to that sticker price.

JOAN KOWALSKI: Bob's thing was never really selling his paintings. He wanted you to paint your own and put it on your wall.

OLSON: So this painting that's up for sale now, "A Walk In The Woods," it's a pretty rare commodity. It underwent a painstaking analysis in order to prove it was a Bob Ross original and also that it was the very first one he painted for his show.

KOWALSKI: And the way we did it was just very, very carefully study all of the different knife work and brush strokes.

OLSON: It turns out the work had been auctioned off in 1983, probably for less than $100. That's according to Ryan Nelson, whose gallery now owns the painting and is selling it for nearly $10 million. Kowalski says she can imagine how Ross might have reacted to that sticker price.

KOWALSKI: I think he would have just blushed and giggled like crazy.

(LAUGHTER)

KOWALSKI: I do.

OLSON: After all, for the so-called people's painter, inspiring others was always the goal. The fame, that was just a happy accident.

Emily Olson, NPR News.