Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent (review)

In Wallace Thurman's roman à clefInfants of the Spring (1932), the artist Paul Arbian's work is described as "nothing but highly colored phalli." This is meant, I think, to be dismissive. As critics have noted, Paul Arbian is modeled on Thurman's friend and fellow artist Richard Bruce Nugent ("Arbian" sounds out Nugent's initials, RBN). Now, thanks to the publication of Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance: Selections from the Work of Richard Bruce Nugent, edited by Nugent's friend and literary executor Thomas H. Wirth, we are able to gander at these highly colored phalli for ourselves. As it turns out, however, the phalli are in rather shorter supply than one might have hoped, or expected, given Thurman's sly dig at Nugent's artistic predilections. If Nugent's Salome series is any indication, Nugent was, ironically, more of a breast man. The only highly colored phallus to be found pops up in Lucifer, from the Salome series, in which Lucifer's erection is tipped with an adorable little heart. As far as phalli go, this is it. Unless, of course, one counts the palm tree that protrudes into the corner of Nugent's drawing for a 1926 cover of Opportunity (and one should, since this palm tree is really something to see). Or the numerous Beardslean poppies that populate so many of Nugent's drawings. Or the half-unbuttoned crotch of a rather scary and butch Goliath from Nugent's David and Goliath. Or the lengthy scroll trailing away from a reclining male nude in one of Nugent's Gilgamesh drawings. Or the crotch shot of John the Baptist, post decapitation, newly severed head backgrounded by, well, the one that's still attached. Or the decidedly stiff tulip that stands between Jesus and Judas, both of whom look like they're voguing in a Madonna video. Okay, so maybe Thurman was onto something after all.

Richard Bruce Nugent secured his place in the pantheon of Harlem Renaissance "figures" on the basis of very few publications, the most famous of which were his short story "Sadjhi," which appeared in Alain Locke's canon-making anthology The New Negro, and "Smoke, Lilies and Jade," an explicitly homoerotic modernist ramble that appeared in the first and only issue of Fire, the short-lived bomb-throwing journal that Nugent helped found. He also contributed a number of drawings and illustrations to various journals and magazines. However, for all that it may have lacked in scope and volume, this record of publication gave Nugent what he craved most: the role of Artist. And it was this role that Nugent played for the rest of his life, to apparently stunning, if somewhat lackadaisical, effect. As the protagonist of "Smoke, Lilies and Jade" muses to himself, "oh the joy of being an artist and of blowing blue smoke through an ivory holder inlaid with red jade and green."

Nugent also became, through his longevity (he died in 1987 at the age of 80) and through his willingness to give good soundbite, one of our most valuable resources on the thrilling period of the 1920s in Harlem. He was at the center of its queer underbelly, living his same-sex desire more openly and certainly more vigorously than the other famously queer members of the Harlem set. He knew all the best stories and had a way with pithy description (he described the Countee Cullen character in his unpublished novel Gentleman Jigger as looking "like a little brown pig"). In short, we know much of what we now know about Harlem in the twenties because Nugent loved to talk about it.

Fortunately, with the release of Gay Rebel of the Harlem Renaissance, we now know more about the art behind the man. A collection of published and unpublished work by Nugent, Rebel offers a much...