Pozatti a major force in establishing IUB printmaking program as standard of MFA programs

By Susan Williams

“He is, perhaps, one of the major contributors to the development and recognition of modern printmaking in this country,” said Brian Jones, a professor of fine arts at IU Southeast who mentored with Pozatti while pursuing an undergraduate degree at IU Bloomington. “Rudy is an extremely well respected printmaker, artist and teacher. There are a lot of successful artists who make prints who can directly relate that influence back to Rudy Pozatti and IU.”

Pozatti joined IU’s fine arts department in 1956 and ran the small printmaking program on his own, teaching etching and woodcut. Housed in Mitchell Hall, the original facilities consisted of only one intaglio press and two broken-down lithography proof presses. A Ford Foundation grant to the Tamarind Lithography Workshop allowed Pozatti to add lithography to the curriculum. He oversaw the growth of the program with the addition of two other faculty members until his retirement in 1991.

Now Distinguished Professor emeritus of fine arts, he is credited with building the IU printmaking program from one of meager offerings into one of the finest in the country. The most recent ranking of printmaking programs by U.S. News and World Report placed IU Bloomington fourth in the country.

“Under Rudy’s direction, the IU printmaking program was one of the premier programs in the country,” said Jones. “It set the standard for other MFA programs.”

A recipient of the Fulbright Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship and Cultural Exchange Grants to the former Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, Brazil and Hungary, Pozatti has been the subject of a public television special. The Archives of American Art has selected his work and papers to be inventoried, arranged and microfilmed for the future use of artists and researchers.

“I’m sure you would find Rudy’s work represented in most, if not all, major print collections in this country and abroad,” said Jones.

Indeed, Pozatti’s works are represented in the permanent collections of more than 100 museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery, the Library of Congress, the Chicago Art Institute and the Cleveland Museum.