Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-1987): Author Page
Richard Bruce Nugent, who also published as Richard Nugent, Bruce Nugent, and Richard Bruce, was born in Washington, D.C. in 1906.
Nugent's family history and multiracial heritage is notable. His mother, Pauline Minerva Bruce Nugent, belonged to the Bruce family, descendants of Daniel Bruce, a loyalist Scottish entrepreneur, and Frances, a Native American. Despite the family’s long history of freedom since the eighteenth century, Pauline’s marriage to Richard Henry Nugent Jr., who had a darker complexion, caused some familial tension due to his lack of equivalent pedigree. Nugent’s parental grandparents, Narcissus George and Richard Henry Nugent Sr., were separated from their own parents by the slave trade but were later adopted and educated by Germantown and Philadelphia Quakers. This diverse heritage and the supportive environment provided by his parents, who welcomed accomplished artists into their home, profoundly influenced Nugent’s early life and artistic inclinations.
Growing up, Nugent was exposed to a rich cultural milieu, with his family frequently attending performances by the Lafayette Players, an African American theater group. His father’s extensive eclectic library further fueled his literary interests. Childhood friendships with notable figure Angelina Grimké also encouraged his development as a writer. Nugent attended Dunbar High School, and after his father succumbed to what was then called “galloping consumption,” a combination of tuberculosis and asthma, his mother moved to New York to secure better employment, leaving him and his brother in the care of her relative until the brothers could join her. This transition marked the beginning of Nugent’s connection with New York, particularly Harlem, where he found a thriving artistic community.
Nugent later became a significant figure in the Harlem Renaissance. In 1926, he co-founded the publication FIRE!!, with Langton Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Aaron Douglas, and Wallace Thurman. This publication aimed to challenge norms within African American literature and art. Nugent’s contributions were groundbreaking, particularly his exploration of homosexuality, making him the first African American writer to openly explore this perspective (see “Smoke, Lilies and Jade”). His stylistically experimental poem “Sahdji,” included in Alain Locke’s anthology The New Negro: an Interpretation in 1925, marked his first published work and was later adapted into a ballet. Nugent’s poetic pursuits illuminate the intersections of race (see “Shadow” or “Silhouette”), sexuality (see “My Love”), and class (see “Cavalier”), expanding the scope of societal norms of African American literature.
Alongside his poetry, Nugent wrote a fair amount of fiction. Unfortunately, his novel Gentleman Jigger was never published in his lifetime despite being written between 1928 and 1933. The novel was first published in its entirety in 2008. Nugent was working on this piece while Wallace Thurman was writing Infants of the Spring (1932). Both novels contain similar plot settings and are romans à clef. Thuman and Nugent allege that the other plagiarized; however, the two novels narrate actual events from slightly different perspectives. Thomas Wirth explains that “Reading the two in tandem provides a uniquely three-dimensional picture of life at Niggeratti Manor,” rent-free housing for Black artists where many of the meetings to produce FIRE!! were hosted. Also in 2023, Nugent’s novella Half High was published as a a stand-alone text, which engages with the same characters from Gentleman Jigger.
However, Nugent was not most known for his writing but for his career as a dancer and artist. Some of his art was featured in publications like FIRE!! (1926), Opportunity (March 1926 cover), and Ebony and Topaz (1926). In Ebony and Topaz, he published a series of four pieces entitled “Drawings for Mulattoes” (see “Number 1,” “Number 2,” “Number 3,” and “Number 4”). Stylistically, Nugent published silhouette artwork that utilized white and black space, creating duality and contrast. Although he was more well-known for his writing and art, he spent time touring as a dancer, appearing in Run, Little Chillun (1933) and touring with Porgy and Bess (1929). In the 1940s, he joined the William’s Negro Ballet Company and performed with various other various dance groups.
Richard Bruce Nugent succumbed to congestive heart failure in 1987, having outlived most of his Harlem Renaissance friends by many years.
Works Cited
Schwarz, A.B. Christa. “Richard Bruce Nugent: The Quest for Beauty.” Gay Voices of the Harlem Renaissance. United Kingdom, Indiana University Press, 2003.
Wirth, Thomas. Introduction. Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent, Richard Bruce Nugent, Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 1-61.