Lalit Mohan Sen was born in 1898 in Shantipur, Nadia, to his parents, Jadumani Sen and Kunjabehari Sen. Growing up in a family associated with the famous traditional textile industries of Shantipur he enrolled in the Shantipur Municipal High School, but, due to the sudden outbreak of malaria, moved to Lucknow in 1909.
Sen enrolled in the Government School of Arts and Crafts, Lucknow, established in 1911 under its first principal, Nathaniel Herd. After graduating in 1917, he joined its Drawing for Reproduction Class as a teacher at age twenty. In 1925, on a government fellowship, Lalit Mohan Sen went to London to study at the Royal College of Art under its Principal, renowned artist Sir William Rothenstein. He earned a Diploma in painting and a certificate in wood engraving from the RCA. A member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, Lalit Mohan Sen, took training in various graphic art mediums under the guidance of the celebrated etcher Malcolm Osborne. After returning to India from England, he rejoined the Government School of Arts and Crafts, Lucknow, as Superintendent of Drawing Teacher’s Training and continued to teach there. He became the School’s Principal in 1945.
Success came to Lalit Mohan Sen early on. The renowned art historian Laurence Binyon commissioned him to copy the Bagh Cave paintings. He was one of the four artists the Government of India hired to decorate the newly built India House in London. His paintings, prints, posters and photographs were widely exhibited and praised in India and abroad. Queen Mary appreciated his tempera painting ‘Potter Girl’ in the Royal College of Art exhibition in 1930 and bought it for the royal collection. In the early 1920s, he was the only Indian artist whose woodcuts were displayed as permanent exhibits in the Victoria & Albert Museum’s print room. Sen’s photographs were shown in the Royal Photographic Society’s annual exhibition and published in the Society’s journal. Besides these, he was a reputed book illustrator known for his commercial art. He won the Federation of British Industries Prize (London) for the best poster design.
A versatile artist and teacher, Lalit Mohan Sen passed away in Lucknow in 1954.