NEW YORK, NY.- Swann Galleries’ May 19 auction of Important Photobooks and Photographs featured classic 20th-century images by celebrated photographers as well as desirable portfolios of their work.

The sale’s top lot was the André Kertész portfolio A Hungarian Memory, which contained 15 silver print photographs of the artist’s homeland, from 1914 to 1923, printed in 1980. It was one of 100 numbered copies and seven artist’s proofs and sold for an auction record of $48,000*.

Other notable portfolios and sets of photos in the sale were a select group of five silver prints from the portfolio Walker Evans, 1935-1936, printed 1971, $21,600; one of 50 copies of Barbara Morgan’s Dance portfolio, with 10 silver prints, 1935-1944, printed 1977, $13,200; and a portfolio with 10 silver prints by Brassaï, containing his iconic Parisian images, 1932-1951, printed 1973, $16,800.

Exceeding expectations were a group of 50 albumen prints attributed to Frederick Gutekunst related to the Philadelphia Society of Artists, depicting art classes, exhibition rooms and views of painter and printmaker Stephen Parrish, circa 1878, that brought $15,600; as well as a group of 68 photographs by Herman Rubin of 1930s Hollywood movie palaces that sold for $19,200.

The highest priced individual photograph was Roy DeCarava’s Dancers, silver print, 1956, printed 1983, which sold for $22,800—a record for a modern print of the image.

Vintage silver print highlights were Josef Koudelka’s Gypsy, Romania, 1968, $21,600, and Fatima, 1973, $11,400; W. Eugene Smith’s poignant Minamata—Tomoko and Her Mother (Japan), 1972, $15,600; Helmut Newton’s racy By-Product of An Advertising Sitting, 1973, $12,000 and Francesca Woodman’s Untitled, 1980, $15,600.

Sought-after modern prints included Paul Strand’s Lathe, Akeley Shop, New York, 1923, printed no later than 1940, $10,200 Berenice Abbott’s portrait of James Joyce, 1928, printed circa 1940, $14,400; Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Hyeres, France, 1932, printed 1990s, $12,000, and Bords de la Marne, 1938, printed late 1980s, $15,600; DeCarava’s Hallway, 1953, printed 1982, $11,400; and Gary Winogrand’s Untitled (from “Women are Beautiful”), 1968, printed 1981, $10,800.

Featured items from the Important Photobooks section of the sale were a rare complete run of Alfred Stieglitz’s short-lived art journal 291, named after his New York gallery, numbers 1-12, March 1915-February 1916, $31,200; Alvin Langdon Coburn’s New York, first edition, London & New York, 1910, $14,400; and Ed Ruscha, Twentysix Gasoline Stations, first edition, Alhambra, California, 1963, $9,600.

*All prices include buyer’s premium.