[2] The ICA's founders intended to establish a space where artists, writers and scientists could debate ideas outside the traditional confines of the Royal Academy.

The model for establishing the ICA was the earlier Leeds Arts Club, founded in 1903 by Alfred Orage, of which Herbert Read had been a leading member.

Like the ICA, this too was a centre for multi-disciplinary debate, combined with avant-garde art exhibition and performances, within a framework that emphasised a radical social outlook.

The gallery, clubroom and offices were refurbished by modernist architect Jane Drew assisted by Neil Morris and Eduardo Paolozzi.

[5] Ewan Phillips left in 1951, and Dorothy Morland was asked to take over temporarily, but stayed there as director for 18 years, until the move to the more spacious Nash House.

In its early years, the Institute organised exhibitions of modern art including Picasso and Jackson Pollock.

With the support of the Arts Council, the ICA moved to its current site at Nash House in 1968, the refurbishment again designed by Jane Drew.

Art critic JJ Charlesworth saw Eshun’s directorship as a direct cause of the ICA's ills; criticizing Eshun's reliance on private sponsorship, his cultivation of a "cool" ICA brand, and his focus on a cross-disciplinary approach that was put in place "at the cost", Charlesworth wrote "of a loss of curatorial expertise.

[21] The ICA was hit hard by closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns from mid-March 2020 and reopened in July 2021 with War Inna Babylon: the Community’s Struggle for Truths and Rights, an exhibition focused on the “various forms of state violence and institutional racism targeted at Britain’s Black communities.

In response, artist Rheim Alkadhi pulled her exhibition out of London’s Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) saying the organisation does not take accountability for retaliating against workers who have expressed solidarity with Palestine.