Founding member of the group Jeune Peinture Belge in 1945, Jan Cox came to the United States in 1950 to fulfill his dreams. He exhibited in New York at Curt Valentine's gallery and then Catherine Viviano's.

From 1956 onwards, after a stay in Rome, he worked in Boston as Head of the Painting Department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, where he realized his first important painting cycle based on the myth of Orpheus.

In 1974 he returned to Antwerp to dedicate himself entirely to painting and in 1975 produced his monumental painting cycle based on Homer's Iliad. This series of paintings was his catharsis of violence, expression of disappointment he had previously experienced in modern society and purging of his haunting memories of the Second World War.

Until his death in Antwerp on October 7, 1980, Jan Cox's career continued with works on the subjects of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte and The Martyrdom of Christ.

Submitted January 2005 by Maria Mineta, Mineta Collection of Brussels, Belgium