For more than twenty years Nella Marchesini and Ugo Malvano shared their lives and their artistic experiences. Their exchange, a blend of two distinct personalities and cultures, was constant, intense and not without clashes. Owing to his education, more than to his age (he was born in 1878), Ugo Malvano was in many ways a man of the 19th century. To some extent provincial, moving to Paris he acquired an international breadth. Nella Marchesini was born in 1901 and still very young she met in Torino Felice Casorati. During the twenties, Casorati developed a modern style of painting rooted in the classical tradition. He was also aware of the new approach to modernity represented by the Mittel-european Secession movement. Marchesini and Malvano shared an unconditional admiration for Cézanne. His paintings, where modernity and classical art combine, where a source of inspiration for both even though each of them borrowed something distinct from the master of Aix.