Ketty Hoppe, a painter but above all a watercolorist, was trained by her father. She then exchanged her native city of Dusseldorf for Brussels, to take lessons there with the then well-known Brussels genre painter Jean Portaels. She married Victor Gilsoul and settled with him in Brussels, where she made a name for herself with sunny Flemish landscapes, city and garden views, courtyards and flowers in a multi-coloured, luministic palette. She also occasionally worked in France with Victor Gilsoul, including in and around Versailles.