The Ikon Gallery () is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. Ikon was set up to encourage the public to engage in contemporary art. As a result, the gallery delivers an off-site Education and Interpretation scheme to educate audiences, and to promote artists and their work. The gallery is open every day of the week except Mondays, though it opens on bank holiday Mondays. Featured artworks include all forms of media including sound, sculpture and photography as well as paintings. Exhibitions rotate throughout the year so that as many pieces can be displayed as possible. Ikon is a registered charity which is partly funded by Birmingham City Council and Arts Council of England. History "The Ikon" (as it is colloquially known) was founded by art collector Angus Skene and four artists from the Birmingham School of Art, David Prentice, Sylvani Merilion, Jesse Bruton and Robert Groves. The collection began after Skene bought Prentice's painting Kate and the Waterlilies in 1964, and the two started discussions about the lack of support for contemporary artists provided by Birmingham's existing artistic institutions. The gallery was originally conceived as a "gallery without walls", with exhibitions planned to tour unconventional locations such as cinemas and post offices in a motorcycle sidecar The gallery was then eventually established in 1965 in an octagonal glass-walled kiosk in Birmingham's then-new Bull Ring shopping centre. The gallery's first exhibition displayed work by John Salt. The venue was then staffed by the founding artists and sometimes their spouses on a voluntary basis. The gallery's venture was funded by Skene, but organisational control of the gallery was left in the hands of the artists. The name of the gallery was coined by Groves, who was interested in the icons 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". In Ikon's founding prospectus it declares: "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"The lease on the kiosk expired after three years, but with Arts Council support the gallery was able