Mohsen Shalaan was born in Cairo on 14 April 1951 and received his BA in Art and Education in 1974. He held several positions at the Ministry of Culture, the last of which was his appointment in 2006 as Head of the Fine Arts Sector, a body responsible for several art institutions and museums, including the Mahmoud Khalil Museum, home to one of the most significant collections of 19th and 20th-century European art in the Middle East.
Shalaan’s work was acquired by several international and local museums, such as the US Congress Library museum in Washington, Al-Ahram newspaper, the Cairo Opera House, and the Goethe Institute in Cairo. He also supported Egyptian artists and tirelessly set up a museum for renowned Egyptian artist Inji Efflatoun at the historical Amir Taz Palace. Shalaan also worked to restore various rundown cultural venues in Egypt, including the Aisha Fahmy Palace, the Rateb Sedik Museum, the 1952 Revolution Heroes Museum, and the Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil Museum.