Siblings Ann Gloag and Brian Souter co-founded the international transport company Stagecoach in 1980. The company is now one of the largest bus operators in the UK. This double portrait was commissioned along with those of several other Scottish business people for the Arts and Business exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 1999. Having retired from active involvement in Stagecoach, both support various philanthropic projects and have set up their own charities. In 2011, Souter was knighted ‘for services to Transport and to the Voluntary Sector’. Gloag was made a Dame ‘for services to Business and Philanthropy’ in the Queen’s New Year Honours 2019. Souter is also known for privately funding the unsuccessful ‘Keep the Clause’ campaign in 2000 which opposed the Scottish Parliament’s repeal of legislation that had prohibited local authority schools from ‘intentionally promot[ing]’ same-sex relationships.