Painter and printmaker Rudolph Otto "Rudy" Pozzatti was born in Telluride, Colorado, on January 14, 1925. Upon graduation from high school, he received a scholarship to attend the University of Colorado in Boulder where he enrolled as an art major. In 1943, his studies were interrupted by his induction into the U. S. Army. After his discharge in 1946, he re-enrolled in the University of Colorado where he studied under Wendell Black, who established the printmaking workshop. Pozzatti attended summer sessions at the University of Colorado where he studied under Max Beckmann in 1949 and Ben Shahn in 1950. He received his BFA in 1948 and his MFA in 1950. Upon graduation, he was appointed to the position of instructor in the art department of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. In 1956, Pozzatti assumed an assistant professorship in drawing and graphic arts at Indiana University at Bloomington. While there, he developed one of the leading printmaking departments in the United States. In 1979, he co-founded Echo Press with fellow printmaker David Keister.

Among the grants and honors awarded him was a Fulbright grant he received in 1952, which he used to travel to Italy; a Graduate School fellowship from Indiana University at Bloomington in 1957, which he used to travel in Mexico; and in 1963 he received a Ford Foundation grant which enabled him to spend three months working at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, and a Guggenheim Foundation grant and a Fulbright travel grant to study in Italy for the summer. In 1981, Pozzatti was elected a member of the National Academy of Design, and in 1989, he received the Professor Emeritus Award by the Southeastern Graphic Association.

Pozzatti was an energetic and prolific artist and teacher who has produced a vast body of work, traveled the world, held numerous artist-in-residencies and visiting artist positions, mounted numerous solo exhibitions, and whose work was included in copious numbers of group exhibitions. His work is represented in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Boston Public Library, Brooklyn Museum, Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, Butler Institute of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Cincinnati Art Museum, Dayton Art Institute, Des Moines Art Center, Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Fort Worth Art Center Museum, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Joslyn Art Museum, Kalamazoo Art Institute, Library of Congress, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,  Milwaukee Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art in New York, National Gallery of Art in D.C., New York Public Library, Portland Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and numerous university art collections.

Rudy Pozzatti died in Bloomington, Indiana on March 27, 2021.