Born in New York City he attended the Art Students League, Cooper Union and Black Mountain College. He has taught at numerous universities and is recognized as one of the leading graphic artists in the United States and amongst the finest printmakers in the world. His works are represented in nearly every significant collection in the U.S.A. including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Los Angeles County Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, N.Y.C., the Whitney Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. Overseas one can find his works in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Musee Carnavalet, Paris. He has had over 300 one-person exhibitions in the United States and abroad.

Altman currently lives in central Pennsylvania in the small village of Lemont where a Nineteenth Century frame church serves as his studio. He spends one-third of each year working in Paris where his lithographs are printed at Atelier Desjobert. In 1985 an exhibition of his work was sponsored by the city of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne and he was presented with the Silver Medal of the City.