Roy Carruthers, painter, printmaker, illustrator, graphic designer, and art director, was born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa on December 14, 1938. Carruthers studied at the Port Elizabeth Technical College Art School, which apprenticed him in the advertising agencies in Port Elizabeth. From 1956 to 1968, he worked as an art director and graphic designer, first in South Africa, then in London, where he moved in 1960. He spent most of the 1960s living England before he immigrated to the United States in 1968. He settled in Old Greenwich, Connecticut and commuted to New York City for many years working in the advertising industry. In 1974, he decided to devote himself entirely to fine art but returned to the advertising world in the 1980s. He eventually opened his own advertising and graphic design firm in the New York borough of Queens. Carruthers taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1975. As a fine artist, he produced paintings, drawings, sculpture, etchings, and lithographs. His collaboration with Editions Press in San Francisco produced color lithographs and sculpture.

Carruthers' work was honored with an award from the American Institute of Graphic Art in 1973 and a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators in 1973. His works were exhibited throughout Europe, South Africa and the United States. In 1982 he returned to South Africa as a guest of the Department of National Education and was honored with a touring museum exhibition of his work. Carruthers is represented in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts; University of Wyoming Art Museum; the Oklahoma City Museum of Art; Ulrich Museum at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greenboro; and the Ponce Museum, Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Roy Carruthers died on May 3, 2013, in Bunnell, Florida.