Agnes M. Thorley (1902 – 2003?)

Study for a Mosaic and Fresco, c. 1930s, mixed media on paper board, signed lower right, 30 x 18 inches, label reads: “Mosaic and Fresco for / Office building Lobby / Scale – 3/4” = 1’0” / By / Agnes M. Thorley / 221 Bronx River Road – Yonkers – New York”, unframed

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Agnes Marie Thorley was an artist and award-winning designer.  During the 1930s, she partnered with four other young artists to form the American Design Group which operated a studio in Bronxville where they created designs for decorative arts including wallpapers, fabrics, rugs and linens. In 1934, New York’s ACA Gallery hosted a solo exhibition of Thorley’s mural studies and oils. In a group show, also at ACA Gallery, her painting Library was praised by The New York Times as “outstanding in a mélange of meritorious work.”  In 1938, she won the $1,000 first prize in the United Wallpaper Association’s national competition. Two years later, in 1940, her fabric designs were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of the 15th Exhibition of Contemporary American Industrial Design. She also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the National Academy of Design.  In the 1940s Thorley designed wallpaper and fabric for the Kent-Bragaline, Inc. and she continued to work as a commercial and industrial designer into at least the 1950s.