Roy Crosse grew up in Port of Spain, Trinidad. He left the West Indian island in the early 1960's to study in Toronto, Canada.  

After studying at Toronto’s Central Technical School and the Ryerson University, Crosse embarked on a career as an artist and teacher.  In 1977 he joined the staff of Toronto’s New School of Art and was appointed its deputy director.  In 1979 Crosse moved to the West Indies funded by a UNESCO fellowship which supported his position as chairperson of the painting department at the Jamaica School of Art.

Since then, he has had a variety of professional appointments and awards.  These include the Ontario Arts Council Awards in Toronto, Canada; the New York Foundation for the Arts Award;  the Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York and New Jersey Arts for Transit Award and a Joan Mitchell Award among others.

Crosse was Artist-in-Residence at the Newark Museum Arts Workshop, Boston’s Northeastern University and the Experimental Printmaking Institute at Lafayette College, PA.

His work graces the collection of the Prudential Corporation; the Museum of the National Center of African American Artists in Boston; The Newark Public Library; the Montclair Art Museum, Stromberg New York; Skillman Library Lafayette College, PA; and the National Museum and Art Gallery of Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies, and a thirty-four foot tall sculptural commission for Seton Hall School of Law in Newark, New Jersey.

This cosmopolitan artist lived and worked in many places, including Toronto, Boston, New York and Newark, NJ before settling into a Baltimore, MD live/work studio and gallery.  The space is evidence of the artist’s creative interests: hand-made percussion and string instruments; prints and works on paper and abstract paintings and large totemic wooden and metallic constructions that evoke memories of the Caribbean.

Roy Crosse succumbed to his long and brave battle with cancer in February of 2014.  His work is a testament to his dedication to art and culture.