Charlotte Johnson Wahl

Charlotte Johnson Wahl (née Fawcett) was born on 29 May 1942 in Oxford, England. Her father was Sir James Fawcett, an English barrister, and her mother was Frances Beatrice Fawcett (née Lowe). Frances was the daughter of Elias Avery Lowe, a Russian-American Jewish palaeographer, and Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter, an American translator and writer. Charlotte's maternal family included four siblings, among them the journalist and author Edmund Fawcett. Her paternal lineage includes Joseph Fawcett, an English clergyman, and Edith Fawcett (née Scattergood).

In 1961, she commenced studies in English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. She took her final examinations in 1965, which was the first year that the college permitted married undergraduates to sit for their finals. She graduated with a second-class honours degree.

Charlotte Johnson Wahl pursued a career as a professional portrait painter. Her subjects included Sir Crispin Tickell, actress Joanna Lumley, author Jilly Cooper, and journalist Simon Jenkins. Her artwork often depicted children with their toys and dogs, and she also painted landscapes and still lifes. Art critic Jonathan Jones of The Guardian described her style as influenced by Vorticism. She held multiple exhibitions throughout her career, including at the Maudsley Hospital in London in 1974, in Brussels during the 1970s, and at the Gavin Graham Gallery in London in 2004. A retrospective of her works was displayed at Mall Galleries in London in 2015. A documentary titled "Painting the Johnsons," aired on Sky Arts, focused on her artistic career. In 1997, she received a fellowship to study in Bogliasco, Italy. Her paintings have been sold for between £1,000 and £5,000. Two of her paintings are part of the collection at the Bethlem Museum of the Mind, and an additional two are held by Oxford University colleges.

Charlotte Johnson Wahl married Stanley Johnson in 1963, after they met at an All Souls College lunch hosted by her father following his receipt of the Newdigate Prize for poetry. The couple resided in various locations, including England, the United States, and Brussels. They had four children: Boris Johnson, Jo Johnson, Rachel Johnson, and Leo Johnson. In 1974, she was treated in Belgium for phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and anxiety concerning her children. She stated that her husband was unsympathetic during her treatment. The couple divorced in 1979.

In 1988, she married Nicholas Wahl, an American academic specializing in French politics, whom she met at a dinner party hosted by Sir Crispin Tickell in Brussels. The Walshed lived together in Washington Square, New York. Nicholas Wahl passed away from cancer in 1996.

Charlotte Johnson Wahl was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 40. She died of cancer on 13 September 2021 at St Mary's Hospital in London, aged 79.

Regarding her political views, the Evening Standard in 2015 described her as "left-wing," with her daughter Rachel noting that her father, Stanley Johnson, "tends to marry socialists." In the same year, Johnson Wahl stated she never voted for the Conservative Party and supported Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. Rachel Johnson described her mother as "the only red in the village" on Exmoor. In October 2019, Boris Johnson, her son, stated during a speech to the Conservative Party conference that she voted for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum.