Bid in Background Bob Auction and help break £50,000

The Background Bob Project is truly a feel good story. A feel good story that we’ve had the pleasure of following for the last seven months.

Back in May 2020, we spoke to Nathan Jones about the project involving his son Noah, aka Background Bob, and covered it in our story ‘Background Bob art project becomes a positive global movement’. If you aren’t familiar with the project we highly recommend you read it.

Since that initial conversation, we’ve kept in touch and followed Nathan and Noah, watching the project grow and grow… and grow.

Speaking to Nathan you can tell he never expected the project to become as big as it has…

“It’s completely humbling that so many artists of all levels have given up their time to participate. We have been overwhelmed by the response and the love that people have shown Noah and can’t believe the incredible journey the Background Bob project has taken us on”, Nathan explained.

Since its humble beginnings, the project has seen over 200 artists worldwide get involved, including some big names in the art world like My Dog Sighs, Pure Evil, The London Police and Pez. The artwork that Noah collaborated on has been showcased in a beautiful book and exhibited at the First Site Gallery in Colchester.

“Having such well-known names jump onboard really helped the project grow. What I’ve loved is seeing it together, both in the book and at the exhibition. It was amazing to have artwork by well known artists sitting alongside lesser known artists for the same cause. It’s what it was all about. Artists coming together to contribute, whatever level of skill and fame”, said Nathan.

And this, we have to say, is why we believe the Background Bob project is so special and why it’s become so successful… the artists. We’ve noticed it a lot on social media, with many various fund raising ideas and projects, and that’s the fact artists consistently give up their time to help out a worthwhile cause. Not to get free publicity or further their career but to simply help and be a part of something. It’s a community that genuinely care and are willing to help and it’s one we are very proud to be a part of.

The worthwhile cause in this case is The Colchester and Ipswich Hospitals Charity. A charity very close to the hearts of the Jones family, as Colchester hospital is where Noah has spent many hours to help with his Hydrocephalus, Epilepsy and Cerebral Palsy.

“We owe so much to the specialists at Colchester Hospital and this is our way of thanking them. When the project took off, we decided to raise as much money as we could with the amazing art and figured we could do this through book sales and an art auction”, explained Nathan.

So far with book sales alone, the Background Bob project has raised over £18,000 but with the art auction still to go, Nathan anticipates that number could rise as high as £50,000.

And we agree, with all 240 pieces of art found in the ‘Background Bob and his amazing friends’ book up for grabs it would be the ‘icing on the cake’ if the total broke £50,000.

The Background Bob auction goes live via eBay at 6pm on Sunday 28th February. To find the listings, all you need to do is search ‘Background Bob’ on eBay once the auction is up and running. If there’s a particular one you have your eye on, then simply search for Background Bob plus the artists name. Please note, to bid on any of the artworks you’ll need to make sure you have an eBay and PayPal account… good luck and happy bidding!

To have been able to write about something so positive during these sad and strange times has been the diversion we all needed, with the project nearing its natural conclusion is this the end of Background Bob?

Nathan explained, “Initially, the end goal was always the Background Bob auction, but because we’ve had such a continuous response from other artists and organisations around the world, we now have a few more plans up our sleeve”.

Whatever the mysterious plans turn out to be… bring on Background Bob 2.0, we can’t wait.