It's a Wonderful Life

A pivotal moment in Director Frank Capra's classic Christmas movie! Mary Hatch (Donna Reed) finally has the full attention of George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart)- the man she's loved since childhood. They don't know it, but their very brief courtship is about to be interrupted. The whole story of one man experiencing what the world would have been like if he had never been born was based on Philip Van Doren Stern's home-made Christmas card entitled "The Greatest Gift." 

About the Artist

Gene Grubb - The Simple Things
Hi, my name is Gene Grubb and my business is called The Simple Things. To me, art is simply something that you like to look at and/or something that inspires you. My favorite artists are Monet, because I think most of his paintings are beautiful, the illustrator Norman Rockwell because both he and I prefer to depict the world the way we want it to be, and the filmmaker Frank Capra- in his heyday- because of his dogged belief that truth will prevail. These virtues- truth, humanity, innocence, and sweetness- seem to be getting harder to find, but they are there, and I believe, worth finding and accentuating.

I take photographs in my travels. Any nature picture that strikes me, I try to recreate faithfully, making sure to capture the essence of what it was- the composition, the color, the contrast, etc.- that struck me in the first place. As far as the pictures of children goes, I typically have to do some editing via Photoshop, for compositional purposes, but the main thing is to capture the kids' faces truthfully.

I received a Design Communication minor at Texas Tech University in 1981
(with 56 course hours in Art). There, I studied under Frank Cheatham, who studied under Saul Bass at the LA Center.

As far as professional artwork, I was the Artist-in-Residence at Liberty Elementary in Danielle, IL during the spring of 1996. I worked as a Graphic Designer and Illustrator at Jostens Yearbook from 1988-1992. I served as a Technical Illustrator at E-Systems (acquired by Raytheon) in Garland, TX from 1981-1988.