As so often happens in Chambers’s work, the everyday is transcended. Given his Catholicism—to which he converted while a student in Madrid—echoes of The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) are hard to deny. We should not therefore assume that Chambers casts himself as Christ. Lunch—initially titled “Sunday Lunch”—is in theme and execution akin to his Sunday Morning pictures, in each of which his family’s relationship to the divine is broached.

Lunch provided another challenge for the artist: his wife, Olga, asked that he give it to her. Chambers, however, was set on providing as good a financial legacy for his family as possible. That it remained unfinished meant that he did not have to choose between these family priorities.

This Spotlight is excerpted from Jack Chambers Life & Work by Mark A. Cheetham.