Friedrich König was a founding member of the world-famous Vienna Secession. Thus he belonged to the painter elite in Vienna around 1900. Together with Josef Engelhart, Rudolf Bacher and Maximilian Lenz, F. König formed a separate circle within the Secessionists. In his work, the painter captivates with figural scenes as well as in his landscape paintings and the particularly fragrant, delicate impressions. His work impressively shows the artistic style of Art Nouveau and Symbolism in painting.

He studied at the Vienna School of Applied Arts and from 1878 to 1883 at the Vienna Academy under Christian Griepenkerl, August Eisenmenger and Carl von Blaas, then moved to Munich and became a student at the Munich Academy. Study trips took him to Italy, France, Germany and Spain. Besides poster ideas, picture contributions for the magazine “Ver Sacrum”, he also designed the interior decoration of the 1st exhibition of the Vienna Secession in 1897. 1898 – 1899 he created murals for a room of the architect Josef Olbrich in Hinterbrühl near Vienna. Around 1900 König produced two paintings that were intended as wall coverings for the music room in Karl Wittgenstein’s city palace in what was then Alleestraße, today Argentinierstraße.

As a founding member, König was represented at the majority of Secession exhibitions until 1939. In 1901 and 1904 he participated with works in the Great Art Exhibition in Dresden and in 1901 and 1909 in the Glass Palace and Secession in Munich, and in 1911 in the International Art Exhibition in Rome.

In 1929, Friedrich König was honored by the Vienna Secession as its oldest member on his 70th birthday with a collective exhibition of his works. His companion Josef Engelhart wrote about him: “The viewer who steps in front of the works of Friedrich König immediately feels that here a deeply inward artist is speaking to him, a painter who traces nature with almost womanlike tenderness, a poet for whom pencil and brush are the means to describe his dreams”.

Works of his hand are located:

Belvedere, Vienna
Wien-Museum, Vienna
Leopold Museum, Vienna
and numerous public and private collections in Austria and abroad.