Richard Sargent (born 1911, Moline, Illinois) trained at the Illinois Art School while employed at a printing company, later continuing his studies at the Corcoran School of Art and the Phillips Memorial Gallery. From 1951 onward, he contributed regularly to The Saturday Evening Post, building a body of work focused on postwar suburban life. Sargent often looked to his own family as subjects, his red-haired son, Anthony, among the most familiar faces on his covers, like the one shown here.

Singing Praise illustrates a postwar moment when many Americans sought a return to familiar routines. Gender roles had been shifting for decades, through the Roaring Twenties and again during the war, when women took on jobs that had traditionally been held by men. Afterward, popular culture worked to restore older norms and covers like this one used humor to present the church and community as central to American life.