Scholar Elizabeth Johns remarked that Quartley's work reveals familiarity with the Dutch Masters marine tradition of composition in treatment of light and color.

The Hudson River School was waning at this point, so that other groups were forming, among them the Tilers, of whom Quartley was a founding member.

The Tilers was a group of artists and writers, that included Winslow Homer, William Merritt Chase, and Augustus Saint Gaudens.

The journalist and philanthropist John W. McCoy promoted the careers of Quartley and of his friend, the sculptor William H. Rinehart.

Some of his noteworthy canvases are: Early Moonlight, Naragansett Bay (1877); Afternoon in August, Coast of Maine (1878); and Low Country on the North Shore of Long Island (1881).