Carin Riley was born in New York City and grew up on the South Shore of Long Island. She Studied painting at the School of Visual Arts, New York where she was a student of Robert Ryman, Robert Mangold and Richard Serra. She received her MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1973. Her drawings are in several private collections as well as the Arkansas Arts Center, Foundation Collection, as a gift of Sally and Wynn Kramarsky, as well as The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.