During the war, Renato Birolli was forced to leave Milan with his family and take refuge in a farmhouse at Cologno di Melegnano, where he turned his attention to subjects drawn from rural life.

Birolli’s participation in the Resistance is powerfully documented in the series of drawings Italia ’44, exhibited in Milan in May 1945 in a solo exhibition at the Galleria Santa Radegonda. In 1943, he published Sedici Taccuini, the first edition of his writings and notes on painting.

During these years, he devoted himself to drawing and photography while continuing to paint works such as Ritratto di Ro’ (1940), Elegia per un paese felice (1942) and Girasoli (1943). These works bear witness to a profound engagement with lived reality which, beyond the horrors of war, found expression on canvas in a renewed sense of joy through colour.