HOLLYWOOD, California, USA, September 30, 2026 — Gaëtan Bloom received the Max Maven Memorial Medal for Innovation in the Mystery Arts in person Tuesday night at the Magic Castle, four months after accepting the honor by video at the Academy of Magical Arts’ 57th Annual Awards Show.
Bloom was named this year’s recipient at the 57th Annual Awards Show on May 31 at the Orpheum Theatre in downtown Los Angeles, hosted by Nick Diffatte. Egan announced the award during the show, and Bloom, who was not in attendance, accepted by video.
On Tuesday, Egan presented the medal to Bloom in person at the Castle. The medal comes with a cash prize and recognizes artists whose originality and creative contributions have expanded what magic and the mystery arts can do, “just like Max did,” the foundation wrote in a Facebook post.
“Honoring remarkable creators like Gaëtan — and supporting the continued development of innovative work — is one of the ways the Dai Vernon Foundation works to advance and support the art of magic,” the foundation wrote.
Congratulations came quickly from the community. “Gaëtan is brilliant and this is so richly deserved indeed!” Kenton Knepper wrote in a Facebook comment.
The medal is an annual honor funded by Max Maven’s estate and awarded by the Dai Vernon Foundation. Bloom is its second recipient. Yann Frisch received the first at the Academy’s 56th Annual Awards Show in May 2025, where the honor came as a surprise after his performance.
Born Jean-Louis Blum in Paris in 1953, Bloom studied under Dominique Webb and has spent more than five decades as a performer and inventor. He has also worked as a film actor, with credits including Lacombe Lucien (1974, credited as Jean-Louis Blum), Henry & June (1990), and Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar (1999), and he creates special effects for the theater. On stage, he was a featured attraction at the Crazy Horse cabaret in Paris for more than 4,000 performances and remains a mainstay of the Paris theater Le Double Fond, where he performs solo and with friends.
Among magicians, Bloom is best known as a prolific creator of effects for close-up, stage, and mentalism. His creations include Bloom’s Gypsy Thread, long the finale of his own shows, the Intercessor, and his versions of the Standing Card and the Flying Ring. His collected work was published in the two-volume Full Bloom (2013), with Todd Karr serving as translator, editor, and publisher.
The medal adds to a long list of honors. The Academy of Magical Arts named Bloom its 1986 Lecturer of the Year and awarded him its 1999 Creative Fellowship and its Masters Fellowship in 2022. He also received France’s Mandrake d’Or in 1990, a special award for “creativity and vision” at FISM 2006 in Stockholm, and the Magic World Vienna 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, presented in November 2025 at the close of the festival’s Grand Festival show.
The medal’s namesake, Max Maven, was a mentalist, author, and magic historian who died at his home in Hollywood on November 1, 2022, at age 71, weeks after receiving his own Masters Fellowship. Maven had been among the magicians Dai Vernon mentored during his final three decades as Magician-in-Residence at the Magic Castle, and his family directed memorial gifts to the Dai Vernon Foundation to support grants and scholarships for junior magicians.
The foundation itself grew out of the Dai Vernon Fund, created with a bequest from Vernon’s estate after his death in 1992. Its original purpose was funding a cash grant for the Academy of Magical Arts Close-up Award winner each year. As donations grew, the fund expanded into education for promising young magicians and aid for magicians in extreme circumstances, and it was later incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Based in Studio City, the foundation recently benefited from a fundraising auction that included a Houdini Chamber Chef’s Table donated by Kristy Pitchford.
For information about the work of the Dai Vernon Foundation and how you can support the organization visit, daivernonfoundation.org
Responses