About The Project

The Ted Spagna Project started in 2009 when family friends, Ron Eldridge and Delia Bonfilio (Spagna’s nephew and god-daughter), set out to acknowledge his important contributions to art and science by shining a light on his pioneering work in sleep photography.

The journey began by going through the materials and works that are in the Estate’s collection and reconnecting with Spagna’s friends and colleagues through social media. Soon after, they made a few trips to the Boston and Cape Cod area to meet these wonderful people who were also some of Ted’s earliest sleep portrait subjects. The duo soon realized that in addition to greatly influencing the art and science communities, Spagna also greatly influenced the people around him – both personally and professionally.

In March of 2011, they visited the Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, where an exhibition-ready collection of Spagna’s sleep study work is archived. They also visited The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas in June of 2012 to assess the massive collection of Spagna’s life work that is housed there. This included films, family photos, early portrait work, sleep studies, papers and biographical materials.

They were poised to revive Spagna’s work and created The Ted Spagna Project. Its mission is two-fold: to awaken Spagna’s sleep photography from its 20+ years of dormancy and to reimagine it in the present day.

With the help of Bonfilio Design (Delia’s design agency), they established an online presence and a plethora of marketing materials full of biographical and historical information about Spagna and his pursuit of sleep study. Deciding that a beautiful photography book would be the next step in the awakening, they sought out a book publishing deal with Rizzoli New York. In 2013, “Sleep” by Ted Spagna, was published with rave reviews.

Ron and Delia are working to awaken the Animal Sleep Studies as The Project continues with its mission to reimagine Spagna’s work in Sleep Snapshots and Graphic Sleep Art.