In 1911 she first exhibited work with the Society of Washington Artists, on whose governing board she would serve for a number of years and whose vice-president she became in 1930.
Riley showed work at the Corcoran Biennial from 1919 until 1926; her paintings also appeared in exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Maryland Institute, the American Watercolor Society, the National Art Club, and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, as well as in the Greater Washington Independent Exhibition of 1935.
[2] Riley traveled widely during her career, finding inspiration in the American Southwest and Mexico, the source for the subject matter of some of her few surviving works.
[3] Riley died in Washington, D.C., and is buried in Glenwood Cemetery there with other members of her family.
One of her paintings, Rainy Day, Guatemala, was formerly in the collection of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.