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. He was ousted from his position in the Ministry of Culture following the 2010 theft of Van Gogh's Poppy Flowers from the Mahmoud Khalil Museum. He later served one year in prison on charges stemming from the theft, which prosecutors argued was made possible by insufficient security under his watch.