Under the influence of his attendance of Adolf Hölzel's composing class at the Stuttgart Academy, Gottfried Graf strengthened his intention not only to grasp the content of his works, but also to attach importance to the formal means of composition. As a member of the Hölzel circle, Graf cultivated friendly relationships with Willi Baumeister, Oskar Schlemmer, Hermann Stenner, and Johannes Itten. This generation of artists, which had grown out of the Landenberger School, oriented themselves on the teachings of Hölzel and the formal design possibilities of painting, and understood the new artistic concern of transferring the motivic into a planar color-form structure.
Graf remains consistently attached to the figurative. From his initial phase of his cubo-futuristic style, he developed at the end of the 1920s away to more monumental compositions, in which he preferred to capture female figures. This later style is characterized by the compactness of the figurative form, in which the graphic lines form a counterpart to the predominantly pastel shades of color.
Gottfried Graf played an important role in Stuttgart's artistic life. In 1919 he was one of the spokesmen of the "Üecht Group", which had a far-reaching significance for the art scene in Stuttgart through its active public relations work. Five years after its dissolution, he founded the "Gruppe 29". Together with Oskar Schlemmer, Graf campaigned for the appointment of Paul Klee to the Stuttgart Academy (in vain in the end) and fought throughout his life to provide a platform for international "New Art".