Francois Mengelatte studied art in Tarbes in 1938-1939 with a former curator of the Musée de Bordeaux, then at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse in 1942-1943. He subsequently went to Paris and worked at the Académie Libre de la Grande Chaumière and studied at the studio of André Lhote from 1944 to 1946. During these and the following years he was awarded several distinctions. In 1948, he was appointed teacher of design at the École des Arts in Tarbes, of which he became director in 1975.
Mengelatte painted wall decorations in the public buildings of Tarbes and the surrounding region. He illustrated two works on St Bernadette of Lourdes. With the exception of a few still-lifes and other compositions with figures, he was mainly a painter of Pyreanean landscapes with village scenes against a background of mountains. Whatever the subject, his colours and use of paint, often applied with a knife, are always bold. From 1946, he exhibited his works in various one-man shows in Paris, Lyons, Toulouse, Tours, Pau, Tarbes, Bordeaux and elsewhere. (Benezit)
