This is the first lengthy inquiry into the life and times of René Blum, the successor to Serge Diaghilev and a distinguished Parisian author, editor, critic, and producer. Léon Blum, his older brother, became the first Socialist prime minister of France. René’s early life was dedicated to publicizing and celebrating young playwrights, artists, and writers. Long before his ballet career began, Blum co-edited Gil Blas, the great French literary paper, and wrote art criticisms that inform us about his aesthetic stance and interest in modernism. For example, Blum wrote the preface to the catalogue ... More

This is the first lengthy inquiry into the life and times of René Blum, the successor to Serge Diaghilev and a distinguished Parisian author, editor, critic, and producer. Léon Blum, his older brother, became the first Socialist prime minister of France. René’s early life was dedicated to publicizing and celebrating young playwrights, artists, and writers. Long before his ballet career began, Blum co-edited Gil Blas, the great French literary paper, and wrote art criticisms that inform us about his aesthetic stance and interest in modernism. For example, Blum wrote the preface to the catalogue of an early exhibition of cubist art in 1912. Another aspect of his life concerns his friendship with Marcel Proust. Proust’s letters frequently mention Blum, especially because it was he who helped Proust find a publisher for the first volume of A La Recherche du Temps Perdu. As artistic director of the Théâtre de Monte-Carlo, Blum worked with many important playwrights of his generation and, later in 1932, some of the greatest choreographers such as Balanchine, Massine, Fokine, and Nijinska, providing them with the resources for their unique choreographies. His Ballets Russes de Monte-Carlo and Ballets de Monte-Carlo toured extensively and brought brilliant Russian and European dancers to America during the 1930s. Many escaped to the United States in the wake of World War II. Entrapped in Paris during the Nazi Occupation, Blum was rounded up with 742 other Jewish intellectuals and killed in the Holocaust.