Daughter of Nandalal Bose, a central figure in modern Indian art, she was brought up in the artistic and intellectual milieu of Santiniketan and made significant contributions in the field of design.

Jamuna Sen was born in Haveli Kharagpur in Munger District of Bihar in 1912, the third child of Nandalal Bose and Sudhira Devi.

[1] Under his tutelage, and with the guidance of Rabindranath, Kala Bhavana would soon go on to become one of the most important art institutions in the world, and more broadly, Santiniketan would develop an aesthetic style in its everyday activities that became part of a wider cultural norm.

This had a major effect in breaking the age-old social taboo of conservative Bengal that prohibited girls from performing on public stage… Jamuna in particular was the trailblazer among them and she continued to dance even after her marriage…These were very bold portrayals of women on stage in the early 1930s.

To depict such self-assurance in Chitrangada, such straightforward and passionate probing in Prakriti in Chandalika and the conflict between physical attraction and spiritual love in Kamalika in Shapmochan, and to do so on the public stage, certainly took not only skill and ability but also courage.

[3] With a teacher free from social restrictions, Tagore encouraged both men and women to learn the ancient martial art, and Jamuna, along with her compatriots Amita Sen, Nivedita Bose (née Ghosh), was one of the students.

In his introduction to the book, Nandalal Bose writes that the success of the designs is achieved through the artist's unique perception in filtering nature.

Through the instruction of Nandalal and other Kala Bhavana faculty such as Benode Behari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baij and Sukumari Devi, Jamuna had developed her own style of design distinct from others around her.

Photographs of her Alponas and her surviving Batik works bear testament to her artistic vision and supreme skill in executing painstaking tasks.

[citation needed] Jamuna also worked as part of the team illustrating the Constitution of India under the guidance of Nandalal Bose.

As her daughter-in-law Deepa Sen writes "Even after her regular teaching duties and chores for running a home, Ma felt that the women of Santiniketan among her students would benefit from an organisation to enable them to earn a living through the skills they learnt from her.

This was the idea behind the establishment of Karusangha in 1960… To this day, her students are using her designs to create works of Batik, embroidery etc… Women from many poor families have benefited from this.