Bob Ross was almost universally hated by fellow artists during his career.
The number of snide New York Times articles about him from the early 90's is shocking to me.
https://t.co/5G58so9zqI
A small X-thread grenade built around a genuinely mean 1991 New York Times archive piece on Bob Ross. The post’s core claim holds up: the linked article treats Ross as mass-market, formulaic anti-art and quotes working artists and art-supply people basically calling him kitsch. The interesting part is the period flavor: popularity, reproducibility, and accessible technique are all treated as evidence of illegitimacy. Nice artifact of old-school taste policing.