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Berény hardly had an academic training. It is due to his innate talent that he attained high levels of technique through self-training. He spent a short time at the Julian Academy in Paris. He began his career on impressions by Matisse and Cézanne: he considered their art worth following. The decorativity of Les Fauves, especially that of Matisse, the dynamics of noisy colours, Cézanne's plasticity and a strict composition order are present in "Woman in Red Dress". Both trends suggest continuity whereas the academic approach can be characterized with theatricality and impressionism with instantaneity. Berény focused on problems of space, form and structure. A woman is sitting in a chair with a high back curved in a baroque fashion, her hands are resting in her lap. The neutral green background is broken by a frame, which is reaching into the picture in a peculiar way. She is wearing a low-necked dress without a collar, her legs are covered by a rug. The woman in looking at the viewer: she has a strong glare. Berény drew the face, the eyes wide open, the nose and the curved mouth with a wry smile with contours suggestive of art nouveau. The naked arms and the delicate hands are resting enervated. The left shoulder is slightly down, disrupting the symmetry of the picture, and following the diagonal frame in the background. The purple dress bursts out of the dark green background. The blue drapes rhyme with the purple frame which reconciles contrasting colours. Parts of the body are tinged by light and shadow, and greenish-bluish reflexes of colours around them. Planes and space, composition and randomness and contrasting colours characterize the picture.
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