Gren's first published drawing was a joke cartoon for Spick & Span, and afterwards he sold his first news-related cartoon to the Birmingham Mail, with the help of John Philpin Jones ("Jon") of the News Chronicle: "When I first started I spent a lot of time with Jon, of the Daily Mail. He said draw what you know. And I knew about rugby and the Valleys.".
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His local popularity gave him other opportunities, including drawing the cover for the Max Boyce album We All Had Doctors' Papers, and resultantly became the first cartoonist to receive a gold disc from the record company EMI.
It was named for Axel Wenner-Gren, a Swedish industrialist who created the Foundation.
In 1912, the manufacturing was extended to include vacuum cleaners thanks to a contract with Axel Wenner-Gren.
The Center is named after the businessman Axel Wenner-Gren, who donated funds to finance its construction, after Nobel Prize winner Hugo Theorell had lobbied for having the housing need of visiting scientists addressed.