After studying Fine Arts at Haverford College, Bruce attended the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. In 1986 he was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant for painting.

Following a three-year stint working for the painter Nell Blaine, he spent another three years painting and teaching in the US Virgin Islands. In 1993 he moved to Paris, where he lived, painted, and exhibited for 12 years.  In 2006, he went to Pakistan and spent two years traveling and doing on-site watercolors in the streets, markets, and even mosques. Following the devastating attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and the emboldened Taliban offensive, he returned to the USA, settling in Washington DC, where he lives and paints.

Since 2020 he’s been making sculpture, too, enjoying the trip into 3D art-making. His woodworking sculptures address the problem of climate change and environmental degradation, combining elegance and aesthetic beauty with unpleasant and alarming truths.