In the organizer's words:

The portrait painter Leo von König (1871-1944) has a illustrious name and left behind a large body of work, but the associated, widely scattered written sources are hardly accessible. His person, with his connections to artists and poets such as Käthe Kollwitz and Gerhard Marcks, to Rainer Maria Rilke and Rudolf Alexander Schröder as well as to people in public life, deserves great interest. An extensive research project is currently making his letters, writings and notations accessible for the first time in terms of source criticism and art and literary history. However, the project not only brings together Leo von König's unpublished correspondence; the fact that all of the texts he wrote - including, for example, an obituary for Ernst Barlach - will also be made available will provide a wealth of new insights. Reviews of Leo von König from the daily press are also included. The result is a fundamental work that will be essential alongside letter editions on artists such as Max Liebermann.

From this research context, an essential, albeit erratic correspondence is now picked out, contact persons and occasions are presented, communicated topics are dealt with (and what was not communicated is also reflected upon), and it is reported what can be recognized about the painter's reading of Rilke and his later occupation with the contemporary and what an unusual source was opened up for this. Rilke's contacts with Rodin and the Worpswede artists are well known; this is the first time that some of the material has been made accessible, some of which is in the new acquisitions of the German Literature Archive in Marbach and some of which is privately owned.

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