- Several of his paintings are abstract, though some of his major successes were with (partly) figurative work: for instance, the cycle based on the myth of Orpheus which he produced in Boston, the cycle based on Homer's Iliad he produced after his return to Antwerp.
- In 1976 he moved back to Antwerp, where he focused entirely on his painting work, as in the war years of 1940-1945.
- Jan Cox was convinced that the technical capabilities of a painter were of minor importance for the quality of the painting that resulted: in his view, all the technique a painter needed for the creation of paintings could be learnt in a few months, the rest depended on the painter's creativity.
- Cox cannot find a way out of his drinking and the periods of deep depression that alternate with moments of euphoria and creativity. In 1980 the artist takes his own life. The fact that he died by suicide was not a big surprise to his friends. Months before his death, Cox had already drawn an 'exit arrow', an arrow on the floor of his studio.
- He is buried in the Schoonselhof Cemetery in Antwerp.
- In 1945 Cox co-founded the artist group La Jeune Peinture Belge with the painters Louis Van Lint and Marc Mendelson.
- Jan Cox was a Belgian painter who spent the largest part of his creative life in the United States and Belgium.
- In 1950, he moved to New York, where he did most of his work.
- In 1966 painter Jan Cox won the Berthe Art Prize and the Eug.
- Jan Cox worked as "Head of the Painting Department", professor of painting at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
- Together with then youngsters Fred Bervoets, Walter Goossens and Wilfried Pas, the elder Jan Cox formed the core of the De Zwarte Panter gallery in Antwerp during the 1970s. In 1975-76 this foursome held an exhibition in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
- Jan Cox was psychically hyper-sensitive and suffered from recurrent depression throughout his life, eventually leading to his suicide, in Antwerp, in 1980.
- He studied history and archaeology in Ghent.
- Through his contacts with Pierre Alechinsky, he became involved in the Cobra movement. However, Cox was not attracted to Cobra's spontaneous work, so he soon turned his back on this movement.
- At the end of 1954 he stayed in Rome on a scholarship from the Academia Belgica. His impressions of Rome were initially published in Het Laatste Nieuws, and later republished by the Liberal Archives.
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