Paritosh Sen was born in Dhaka, now in Bangladesh, in 1918 in a family of Ayurveda practitioners. He studied art at the Madras Art School where he met other eminent artists like K. C. S. Panicker, Pradosh Dasgupta, Gopal Ghosh who were his fellow-students. After finishing school he taught at the Daly college of Indore and later in 1943 formed the Calcutta Group along with his friends.

After the disintegration of the Calcutta Group of which the artist was founder member, Paritosh Sen left for Europe, there he studied at the Andre Lhote's school, and at Ecole des Louvre where he studied the history of painting. A meeting with Picasso left him deeply influenced and ecstatic.

He returned back to Calcutta with this deep impression and worked incessantly. Paritosh Sen visited Europe again in 1969 when he was commissioned by the French Government to design a Bengali typography and in 1970 when he received the Rockefeller Grant.

His early style of painting the artist made use of bold lines, figures working with vigorous strokes. In search of his own individual style he went through myriad of changes and in his later works a more stylized, expressionistic and detached element became notable in his works. Sen has repeatedly depicted scenes from everyday urban life. Recently his artworks have become more colourful and exuberant, with a predominance of sensual figures and motifs.