In 1955, Birolli held his second solo exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery (January 31-February 26), and took part in the inaugural edition of documenta in Kassel, held from July to September.

He spent the summer in Manarola, where he painted the celebrated series of Vendemmie e Incendi nelle Cinque Terre (1955, 1958), in which physical space dissolves into the emotional intensity of colour, giving rise to a new and highly distinctive form of abstract naturalism.Enthusiastically received by critics and the press, the abstract works of this final period earned him the Premio La Spezia, the third prize at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, and the Premio Lissone. In 1956, he spent the summer in Tellaro and travelled to Germany for the first time.

Between late 1956 and May 1957, Birolli spent several months in Antwerp, where he began the pictorial cycle of I Canti. After returning to Milan, he made brief trips to Paris and London.

In May 1957, more than fifty of his works, together with his drawings of the Resistance, were included in the exhibition of the Cavellini Collection at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome. The exhibition was subsequently presented at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, in January 1958.

In 1958, Birolli took part in the XXIX Venice Biennale as a commissioner. In March, he travelled to New York, where his third solo exhibition at the Catherine Viviano Gallery opened the following month, presenting works from his Antwerp period. During this stay, he encountered the latest developments in Action Painting, which he studied with considerable interest without ever fully embracing them.

After returning in March 1959 from a brief journey to Germany, Birolli died of a heart attack on 3 May 1959.

Only a few days later, a solo exhibition opened at the Haus am Waldsee in Berlin, before travelling to numerous German cities between 1959 and early 1960. During the same period, the LIV Biennale di Verona, held from May to June 1959, and the VIII Quadriennale di Roma, from December 1959 to April 1960, each devoted an individual gallery to his work.

Between October and November 1959, the Galleria La Nuova Pesa in Rome presented Italia ’44, a solo exhibition devoted to Birolli’s drawings of the Resistance, which subsequently travelled to several Italian cities during 1960.

The following year, his Taccuini were published under the editorship of Enrico Emanuelli, while the XXX Venice Biennale devoted a monographic gallery to his work from June to September 1960.