On Saturday, The New York Times published a profile of Tina Knowles Lawson, the mother, beautician, and art collector behind two of the most powerful women in show business. For the profile, the Times got a chance to ask Beyoncé a few questions about her mother, which she answered “on email, coordinated through a publicist.” Lawson has a large collection of art by Black artists, something that Beyoncé says was important to her and her sister growing up.
“I think it was important to my mother to surround us with positive, powerful, strong images of African and African-American art so that we could reflect and see ourselves in them,” Beyoncé said.
“My mother has always been invested in making women feel beautiful,” she continued, “whether it was through someone sitting in her hair chair or making a prom dress for one of the girls at church. And her art collection always told the stories of women wanting to do the same.”
Solange had similar praise for their matriarch, who appeared on the spoken-word track “Tina Taught Me” on her new album. “She says things in that interlude that I had been trying to say for the last four years,” Solange told the Times. “But my mother has a very special way of communicating, a very special channel that she speaks through that has always felt bigger than her.”
