Boris Johnson's mother dies, aged 79

Charlotte Johnson Wahl, the mother of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, has died aged 79.

The portrait painted died "suddenly and peacefully" at a St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, hospital on Monday, according to The Daily Telegraph.

Boris Johnson once described his mother as the "supreme authority" in the family.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer was among the first politicians to offer his condolences.

Conservative Party co-chairman Amanda Milling tweeted: 'Thinking of Boris Johnson and his family this evening. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.'

Tory MP Conor Burns said: "So sad to hear of the death of Boris Johnson's Mum. Thoughts and prayers are with him and the whole of the Johnson clan."

Born in 1942, the daughter of the barrister Sir James Fawcett, who was president of the European Commission for Human Rights in the 1970s, Mrs Johnson Wahl studied English at Oxford University.

She interrupted her education to travel to America with Stanley Johnson - who she married in 1963 - before returning to complete her degree as the first married female undergraduate at her college, Lady Margaret Hall.

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The couple had four children - Boris, journalist Rachel, former minister Jo and environmentalist Leo - before they divorced in 1979.

As an artist, she made her name as a portrait painter - her sitters included actress Joanna Lumley and author Jilly Cooper - although throughout her life she painted other subjects, including landscapes.

In the years following her divorce, she refused to accept any money from her former husband, and instead made a living by selling paintings. She later recalled she was "very hard up".

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In 1988, she married the American professor Nicholas Wahl and moved to New York where she began painting cityscapes - which were the subject of a sell-out exhibition in 2004 - but returned to London following his death in 1996.

At the age of 40, she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease but she never allowed her illness to prevent her painting, steadying herself with a walking frame as she worked.

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• Boris Johnson