Graeff was a talented painter who joined the Bauhaus school at Weimar in 1921. That same year he met Hans Richter and Viking Eggeling, and the next year became a member of De Stijl group as well as the Novembergruppe. He became interested in abstract film and made Komposition I/22 und II/22 (1922), which was shown in Essenu in 1970s. In 1923, he became one of the editors of Richter’s magazine G (other members were Mies van der Rohe, El Lissitzky and Hans Richter himself), which was the first modern magazine about art. He worked as a propagandist in Stuttgart on exhibitions “Die Wohnung” in 1927 and two years later on “Film und Foto” exhibition, which was an attempt to present the artistic achievements of the contemporary avant-garde. He collaborated as a screenwriter with Richter on his films Ghosts Before Breakfast (Vormittagsspuk, 1928) and Alles dreht sich, alles bewegt sich (1929). He published his book Es kommt der neue Fotograf at the same time and for the same publisher as Richter his book Filmgegner. Afterwards he published many other books such as Das Buch vom Film (1931) and Kamera und Auge (Basel, 1942.). Starting in 1930 he worked as a professor of photography at “Reimannschule” in Berlin, but in 1934 he was forced to emigrate. For the next year he lived in Spain, Switzerland and France and came back to Germany in 1951. Until 1959 he taught at “Folkwangschule” in Essen. In 1957 he became the general secretary of “Internationales Forum für Formgebung” in Berlin. He spent his last years as an independent painter in Essen and Mülheim am Ruhr.