He had a stable early family life with his parents and older brother Norman, living first in Dee Why and then moving to Seaforth during the depression years.

Penniless, he spent a number of nights sleeping rough before meeting the poet Barrett Reid who took him to stay at his parents, this was the start of a lifelong friendship.

Intellectually Hope aligned himself with the Barjai Group,[1] a collection of writers and poets led by Barrett Reid, and with members including Barbara Patterson and Charles Osborne.

[2] Later, in 1945 along with Pamela Seeman and Laurence Collison, he formed the Miya Studios[3] with the aim of providing exhibition space for young artists with common goals.

Though them Hope became acquainted with many of the influential avant-garde in the Melbourne art scene such as Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and John Perceval.

In the late 40s and early 50s Hope travelled widely around Queensland working in a range of odd jobs and painting vivid jungle, urban and figurative images.

During his time in Melbourne he met with a significant network of artists who matched his own ideas of true originality born of imagination, including Danila Vassilieff, John Percival, Arthur Boyd, Jean Langley and Robert Dickerson.

In 1977 his exhibition Opal the Rainbow Gem at the ICA in London featured Cibachrome prints, and acrylic paintings made from them, of the gemstone taken at magnifications of up to x5400 through a microscope.