Shmuel Joseph Schweig

Shmuel Joseph Schweig was born in 1902 in Ternopil

Schweig was born in Tarnopol in Galicia, then part of Austria-Hungary. He became interested in photography there and studied it in Vienna and London. In 1930 he studied languages and photography in London.

Driven by Zionist beliefs, he moved to the Land of Israel in 1922 and began photographing its sites and landscapes. He worked for the Jewish National Fund and opened a workshop on Hanevi'im Street in Jerusalem in 1927. He took the first color photographs made by a local photographer in the country.

He focused on archaeological photography and became chief photographer of the Mandate Department of Antiquities. In 1940 and 1941 he photographed the Tegart police forts for the British authorities. From 1949 to 1965 he headed the photography department of the Jewish Agency.

He took some early photographs of the Great Isaiah Scroll and handled the illustration and layout of the Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. He married Tzvia Dikstein in 1928, and they had a daughter, Gdula, and a son, Hanoch. He died in Jerusalem, and his photographs are held by the Israel Museum and several archives.