Her early work leaned strongly towards the Russian Avant-Garde Movement, although she would equally be at ease, creating very colourful and detailed fairy tale illustrative motifs, for certain nursery rhymes when needed.

As of 1914, Van Coppenolle and her mother fled to London England, in order to avoid World War One's atrocities on the Belgian battlefield, where her father was an Officer in the Army.

During the 1930s, she became briefly and moderately involved with the Flemish National Movement, therefore designing mainly for the Vlaamsche Boekenweek and Het Boek van Vlaanderen in 1936.

The competition's aim, was to create a banner-flag representing the city's image at the 'International World Exposition', taking place in Antwerp at the time.

Some other famous writers whose books she illustrated were Stijn Streuvels, Guido Gezelle, Valère Depauw, Aster Berkhof, Theo Bogaerts, Jan Boschmans, Jozef Simons, Anton van de Velde, Aimé de Cort, Fritz Reuter, T. Lindekruis and Gaston Duribreux.

She always treasured her close friendship with both Ernest Claes and Maurits Bilcke and collaborated on a few occasions with a Czechoslovakian designer friend of hers, who worked for M.L.

In their quarterly publication 'Zuurvrij 19' of December 2010, a 6-page Flemish article was written by Robert Lucas, about Martha Van Coppenolle (Archive of an Illustrator), emphasizing her extensive past contributions and notability to the literary world of present-day Flanders.

In the 1960s her work became more varied and we see a vast array of different artistic media being used, such as plaster and ceramic sculptures, textile designs and hundreds of Neon-Sign advertising panels, in pastel-chalks on black board,( in order to show fluorescence).

In 2007, a complete biography on the Life and Work of Martha Van Coppenolle - Book Illustrator was written in Dutch by Miss Karen Joly, a 3rd degree Bachelor of Arts and Sciences, for the University of Leuven[citation needed].