In 1956 Scialoja held his first solo show in New York at the Catherine Viviano Gallery the opportunity to strengthen relations with American artists such as Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, Conrad Marca-Relli and Cy Twombly. Resistenza is one of the large paintings produced on his return from the United States, between December 1956 and the summer of 1957. Powerfully boasting deep colors, with white, black and dark earths often only touched by a red trickle, the painting belongs to a series of works boasting evident conflicts, lacerations, tears, and conflagrations of forms on a low layer of matter covering the canvas.

In the spring of 1957 Scialoja featured in two exhibitions in New York: Modern Painting. Drawing & Sculpture, Collected by Louise and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr. at Knoedler and Company, and Trends in Watercolors Today at the Brooklyn Museum. In this last review Scialoja exhibits two works from 1956 named with the generic title of "Composition 1" and "Composition 2". Here alongside, two works similar to those exhibited on the occasion.