Lucien Roisin Besnard (L. Roisin) was a French photographer and publisher based in Barcelona and known for the large number of postcards he produced or sold from many locations in Spain during the first half of the 20th century.
He was born in Paris and it is speculated whether he started his photographic activity in the Montmartre district of the French capital. There is also no consensus on the date of his arrival in Barcelona, but based on surviving postcards and a mention in the newspaper La Vanguardia, it can be said that he settled in the city as early as 1912. In 1924, he married Ana Sierra Moreno and died at the age of fifty-eight , without having children.
As an industrial photographer he was known as "Luciano Roisin" or "L. Roisin". The business "Postales Roisin", also known under the trade name La Casa de la Postal, was very popular in its time. After his death in 1943, his nephew changed the professional trade mark Roisin to Sobrino de L. Roisin. His nephews Robert and Lucienne Roisin Duc continued the business until 1962.
Postcards associated with the promotion of tourism were obtained from their own photographs and those of others. As a postcard editor, he often worked with photos of other authors, local photographers, from whom he bought clichés to satisfy the high demand. Due to the lack of documentation and the number of images sold to "Postales Roisin", it was not possible to establish the identity of these photographers.
Thanks to the great production of Roisin, his works can be found in various archives, such as the National Archives of Catalonia, although most of them are stored in the Historical Photographic Archive of the Institute of Photographic Studies of Catalonia, with a collection that exceeds 77,000 images, of which 44,100 postcards and 33,100 negatives.