IKON GALLERY
Ikon Gallery was first conceived of as a ‘gallery without walls’, a headquarters for a fluid artistic programme touring to non-art venues. In 1965 it took up residence in an octagonal glass-walled kiosk in Birmingham’s new Bullring precinct, adjacent to the Rotunda building it challenged a conservative local art world. Supported from the beginning by Angus Hamilton Skene (1922-2002), a Scottish accountant, art collector and art gallery-owner, and his wife Margaret (Midge) Lucille Skene née Ware, who married at Stapleton, Gloucestershire on 30 April 1949. The four artists officially listed as the founders of Ikon were Jesse Bruton (born 1933), Robert Groves (1935-), Sylvani Merilion (1936-2019) and David Prentice (1936-2014), but were joined by several others to help develop and articulate the original vision which included Peter Berry (1936-), Trevor Denning (1923-2009), Dinah Prentice (1935-) and John Salt (1937-2021). After several moves the gallery moved to its current site, the former Oozells Street Board School, in 1997 with the cost of the conversion partly funded by a grant from the National Lottery. The refurbishment work was designed by Levitt Bernstein, who reinstated the building's tower, which had been demolished during the 1960s, The Space Studio at Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Birmingham opened in December 1998. Suffolk artists who have exhibited with Ikon Gallery include Ruth Claxton, Alexander Costello, Ryan James Gander, Geoff Litchfield, Richard John Mackness and Terry Shave.
Website: https://www.ikon-gallery.org