Updated November 2026 · ranked by our popularity score (searches, visits and orders for each work) · 10 works by Jan Cox in our catalogue
In short
To the gallery's eye, Jan Cox's most famous painting is Iliad, The End (1975), whose original hangs in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels. The Actor Domien De Gruyter (1946) and The Two Sisters (1948) complete the trio every eye recognises. Of the 10 works by Jan Cox in our catalog, the gallery presents the 7 most famous below, each original with its year, its museum and what makes it unique.
We are looking at Iliad, The End, a significant work by the artist Jan Cox. Created in 1975, this piece belongs to a period of profound creative output for the painter. It is currently held within the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. This institution is located in Brussels, Belgium.
The 2 museums that hold the most of the paintings on this page.
| Museum | City | Works by Jan Cox | Paintings from this list |
|---|---|---|---|
 Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp |
Antwerp | 4 | The Actor Domien De Gruyter, The Two Sisters, Two Witches |
 Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium |
Brussels | 1 | Iliad, The End |
Pick a decade to see the original that defines it.
We are looking at Iliad, The End, a significant work by the artist Jan Cox. Created in 1975, this piece belongs to a period of profound creative output for the painter. It is currently held within the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. This institution is located in Brussels, Belgium.
Iliad, The End (1975), Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels. The Actor Domien De Gruyter (1946) and The Two Sisters (1948) come next.
56 years old: Iliad, The End dates from 1975, and Jan Cox was born in 1919.
Our catalog holds 10 works by Jan Cox, dated from 1946 to 1980.
Mostly in Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp (Antwerp) and Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels). The museum table above lists them all.
In 1970s: 3 of the 7 works on this page were made then, Iliad, The End among them.
On this page, the earliest is The Actor Domien De Gruyter (1946) and the latest Calvary,The Last Seven Words (1980).
Expressionism, judging by the originals on this page.
The Actor Domien De Gruyter, The Two Sisters and Two Witches: the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, Antwerp holds 4 of the works on this page.
To encounter the work of Jan Cox is to step into a landscape where the boundaries between the physical world and the internal psyche dissolve. Born in The Hague in 1919, the Dutch-Belgian painter possessed a sensitivity that was as much a burden as it was a gift. His life, marked by profound introspection and a lifelong battle with recurrent depression, found its most honest expression through the medium of paint. Cox did not merely observe the world; he felt it with an intensity that often bordered on the overwhelming, a trait that would eventually lead him to seek solace in the solitary depths of his craft.
His early career was defined by a restless search for belonging within the shifting tides of post-war European art. In 1945, he became a founding member of the Jeune Peinture Belge group, a collective born from the necessity to redefine Belgian artistic identity in the wake of World War II's devastation. This period of collaboration instilled in him a spirit of experimentation that would remain a cornerstone of his practice. By the late 1950s, the echoes of the influential CoBrA movement began to resonate within his work. While he was only briefly associated with the group, publishing pieces in their seminal magazine, the CoBrA ethos—with its celebration of spontaneity, primal energy, and a rejection of rigid academicism—provided him with a vital vocabulary for his burgeoning expressive style.
The trajectory of Cox’s life took a dramatic turn in 1950 when he relocated to New York City. This migration exposed him to the electric energy of American Abstract Expressionism, an encounter that fundamentally reshaped his approach to scale and gesture. The raw, muscular brushwork of the New York School found a kindred spirit in Cox’s own emotive struggles. After a brief, formative period in Rome, he returned to the United States in 1956, assuming the prestigious role of Head of Painting at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. In this capacity, he became more than just a creator; he was a mentor, fostering a vibrant environment for the next generation of artists to explore their own creative impulses.
However, the pull of his roots remained inescapable. In 1974, Cox returned to Antwerp, choosing a life of deliberate isolation to devote himself entirely to his painting. It was during this final chapter that he produced some of his most profound and celebrated series. Moving away from pure abstraction, he embraced a form of figurative work that was deeply steeped in myth and tragedy. His cycles based on the Iliad and the myth of Orpheus allowed him to channel ancient human suffering through a modern, fractured lens. These works were not mere illustrations of legend but were visceral explorations of fate, loss, and the enduring power of the human spirit.
The significance of Jan Cox lies in his refusal to separate technique from emotion. He famously believed that while technical skill could be mastered in a matter of months, true greatness resided solely in the depth of an artist's creativity. His paintings serve as a bridge between the spontaneous energy of post-war movements and a deeply personal, almost spiritual, exploration of the human condition. Even as his life reached its tragic conclusion in 1980, his body of work remained a testament to a man who used the canvas to navigate the darkest corridors of the mind.
Today, the importance of his contribution to modern art is recognized through several key pillars of his career:
