Iain Stewart’s work Tender was commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 1999 to celebrate 50 years of the National Health Service in Scotland. It was purchased for the permanent collection and first displayed in the exhibition, Health of the Nation in 2000. Tender consists of 12 photographs and shows ‘the magical, trusting relationship between doctor and patient’. For the creation of this work, Stewart worked closely with an Edinburgh GP who allowed him to observe his interaction with patients. The work bears some similarity to Stewart’s earliest documentary project, Picture of Health (1988), for which the artist observed his parents, both doctors, at work.