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The gallery's venture was funded by Skene, but organisational control of the gallery was left in the hands of the artists.<ref name="Watkins">{{cite book |author=Watkins, Jonathan |editor1=Watkins, Jonathan |editor2=Stevenson, Diana |title=Some of the best things in life happen accidentally: the beginning of Ikon |year=2004 |publisher=Ikon Gallery |location=Birmingham |isbn=1-904864-02-3 |pages=36–38 |chapter=Some of the best things in life happen accidentally}}</ref> The name of the gallery was coined by Groves, who was interested in the [[icon]]s of the [[Eastern Orthodox Church]]. The name was agreed by the other founders partly on the basis that it "divides beautifully geometrically and was splendid in all directions".<ref>{{cite book |author=Stevenson, Diana |editor1=Watkins, Jonathan |editor2=Stevenson, Diana |title=Some of the best things in life happen accidentally: the beginning of Ikon |year=2004 |publisher=Ikon Gallery |location=Birmingham |isbn=1-904864-02-3 |pages=114 |chapter=Interview - Robert Groves}}</ref> In Ikon's founding prospectus it declares: <blockquote>"Ikon is intended as an antithesis to exclusive art establishments and galleries … it has been formed because of the need for an accessible place where the exchange of visual ideas can become a familiar reality"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/programme/past/event/106/some_of_the_best_things_in_life_happen_accidentally/ |title=Some of the Best Things in Life Happen Accidentally 28 July – 12 September 2004 |access-date=2008-03-24 |work=Programme - Past |publisher=Ikon Gallery |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110517151353/http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/programme/past/event/106/some_of_the_best_things_in_life_happen_accidentally/ |archive-date=17 May 2011 |df=dmy-all }}</ref></blockquote>The lease on the kiosk expired after three years, but with Arts Council support the gallery was able to move to the former mortuary in the basement of Queens College in Swallow Street in 1968 and appointed Jeanette Koch as gallery manager.[3] During the next 4 years Ikon held 93 exhibitions and 40 group shows,[6] by which time the lease on the Swallow Street premises came to an end. Under the direction of Simon Chapman (who had previously run the [[Birmingham Arts Lab]]) assisted by Jeanette Koch, the gallery embarked on an ambitious expansion of broadening the exhibition programme to include the works of nationally and internationally recognised artists, and to move to a busier location in order to gain greater interest from a wider public. In the autumn of 1972, with increased financial support of [[Arts Council of Great Britain|The Arts Council]] together with new funding from West Midlands Arts Association, The [[Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation|Gulbenkian Foundation]] and a number of local charitable trusts and industry, Ikon re-located in The Birmingham Shopping Centre, a newly built shopping mall above [[Birmingham New Street railway station|New Street station]]. The fitting out of the gallery was designed by Walter Thomson of [[Associated Architects]] and provided a space four times larger than the Swallow Street gallery and virtually forty times larger than the original Bull Ring kiosk. The number of visitors to the gallery rocketed into the hundreds and on occasions peaked at over a thousand a day providing many with their first opportunity of seeing modern and contemporary art by living artists. The opening show of large chalk on blackboard wall drawings by [[John Walker (painter)|John Walker]] firmly established Birmingham as a city with a gallery devoted to the contemporary visual arts.
During the next 6 years, Ikon became positioned as one of the most important contemporary art galleries outside London, attracting both exhibitors and visitors from far beyond the city. Among the artists who had solo exhibitions were [[Ivor Abrahams]], Allen Barker, [[Barry Burman]], [[John Copnall]], [[Vaughan Grylls]], Trevor Halliday, [[David Hepher]], Harry Holland, David Leveritt, John Mitchell, [[John Salt]], Peter Sedgely, [[David Shepherd (artist)|David Shepherd]], [[William Tillyer]] and Roger Westwood. Notable group shows included Midland Art Now featuring the work of 20 of the most prominent Midlands based artists including Roy Abell, [[Barrie Cook]], John Farrington, Dick French, [[William Gear]], Colin Hitchmough, [[John Melville]], [[David Prentice]] and Peter Tarrant, and which was accompanied by a full colour printed broadsheet catalogue distributed free to the 40,000 readers of the [[Birmingham Post]]. Beyond Destination, a show curated by [[Ian Iqbal Rashid]] and featuring contemporary South Asian artists including [[Sutapa Biswas]] and [[Alia Syed]] went on to tour internationally.<ref>https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09528829308576460
[[File:A Real Birmingham Family.JPG|thumb|left|[[A Real Birmingham Family]] by [[Gillian Wearing]], with the [[Library of Birmingham]] (left) and [[Baskerville House]] in the background]]
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