By the mid-16th century, The Last Supper had lost much of its original brilliance. The porous wall absorbed moisture from the convent’s kitchen, located directly behind it.

In Paul Elie’s ‘Last Supper,’ the odd bedfellows of lust and faith in the New York art scene of the 80s.

THE LAST SUPPER: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s | By Paul Elie | Farrar, Straus & Giroux | 496 pp. | $33 Alexandra Jacobs is a Times book critic and occasional features writer.

Book Review The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s By Paul Elie Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 496 pages, $33 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a ...