His father, Semyon Samsonovich, had been a nobleman; he was before the October Revolution a student at Petrograd University and then an army officer.

Kutateladze started his research without higher education and worked in the institute until 1958, rising to the position of full professor and head of a major department.

His career was interrupted only by the Great Patriotic War, when Kutateladze served as a marine on the Northern Front.

He was wounded in the first days of the Nazi offensive on Murmansk, and carried an irremovable German bullet in his right leg until his death.

He propounded the latter in Siberia, together with his student Aleksandr Leontiev, who went on to become a full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.