 Hoppe began painting as a youth and later studied under José Arpa y Perea, exhibiting numerous paintings in the mid to late 1920s.Some of the exhibits were held at the Witte Museum in San Antonio by Arpa (Museum of Fine Arts of Seville) and his students.He knew many of the leading artists in the state, including Porfirio Salinas, Robert William Wood, and Arpa, and went on field trips with Julian Onderdonk.