A Colourist's Cocoon!

Artist Runima Kakoty and Dr Prakash Kakoty spent over four decades in a rambling house in Yorkshire. They moved to London to be near their children and grandchildren. The Kakotys’ 926 sq ft flat in a Victorian townhouse in Chelsea has been transformed into an artistic artist’s abode.

- Amita Sarwal

Artist Runima Kakoty is a people’s person. That explains our so very brief, coincidental meeting in Gurugram which resulted in this article. We have been long time neighbours who had never met till March 2019 when she and her family were visiting from London.

Our paths crossing was followed by a few months of long-distance communication. Instinctively, I felt this artist would have a home which would justify being featured in Inside Outside. And I was right!

Her home in Chelsea, London, was, as anticipated an amalgamation of colours, memorabilia – and nature. Of course, numerous paintings covering walls, were a given. The collection includes Runima’s prized possessions – ‘two old Marc Chagall lithographs which I bought in an auction house. And, a small sketch by MF Husain which I treasure. He drew and autographed this for me while we were at lunch together in 2010 in London. I have a couple of paintings and a sculpture by a South African artist. What I collect does not have to be a big name only. And there are about 10 of my own paintings on my walls’, Runima reveals.

Her husband Prakash, a general medical practitioner who was made an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by the Prince of Wales, has also been recognised for his contribution to healthcare in the UK in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Both the medal and certificate have places of pride on their home’s wall in the ingress which connects the living room to the bedroom.

The Kakotys, who met in Calcutta (now Kolkata), moved from Assam to London in the late 1970s. They lived in Yorkshire for more than 40 years where Prakash had his medical practice.