About Het Depot
About Het Depot
Sculpture Gallery Het Depot is a museological stage for contemporary sculpture and puts the artist’s development opportunities center stage: by people, for people. The collection of sculptures consists of torsos and fragments of the human body.
Sculpture Gallery Het Depot is a museological stage for contemporary sculpture and puts the artist’s development opportunities center stage: by people, for people. The collection of sculptures consists of torsos and fragments of the human body.
Het Depot Sculpture Gallery is located at three locations, which are interconnected by Arboretum De Dreijen. Villa Hinkeloord houses a permanent exhibition of the work of Eja Siepman van den Berg, with changing exhibitions in the downstairs space. Arboretum Hinkeloord is also part of this location. The main location offers exhibitions of contemporary sculptors and an exhibition about both arboreta. From March 2022, a permanent exhibition with the work of Emile van der Kruk can be seen in the De Peppel building. Educational activities for schools also take place in De Peppel.
The Het Depot Foundation exploits the following activities, among others:
- Sculpture Gallery Het Depot: a permanent exhibition of contemporary sculpture featuring torsos and fragments of torsos
- Solo and themed exhibitions in Sculpture Gallery Het Depot
- Educational guided tours of Sculpture Gallery Het Depot for institutions, private parties and educational institutions
- Lectures and symposia on sculpture and related themes
- Publishing monographs of sculptors
- Providing grants to sculptors
- Providing sculptors with commissions

Why the torso?
Het Depot focuses on torsos and fragments of the human body. Fragments of the human figure in wood or stone, of which the torso is one, are as old as sculpture itself.
The human figure is depicted in art in infinitely different ways. Portraits, heads, full-length statues, busts, torsos and sculpted fragments of the human body were and still are made in literally all kinds of guises. There are figurative works with a perfect eye for the anatomy of the human body and stylized and abstract shapes in which you suspect a body. The human body is depicted as an architectural construction, as a carrier of emotions, and as an artist's personal vision of the human image. With the imagination of (part of) the human body, we as viewers connect with ourselves as humans.
Torso of Belvédère
There is no statue from antiquity that has stimulated the imagination of artists as much as the Torso of Belvédère. It is a larger than life male torso that has long been thought to represent Hercules. The torso became not only the symbol of sculpture, but also the symbol of art. The statue was already installed in Rome in the Palazzo Colonna around 1430. It was only in the sixteenth century that it was really seen by artists and took effect. The modern concept of torso – an Italian word meaning trunk or stump – comes from the Italian Renaissance.
The Belvédère torso has great flexibility – the torso is rotated in relation to the hips. The statue is missing a head and arms, and the legs are broken off below the knees. The statue is now in the Museo Pio - Clementino in Vatican City. A copy can be found in Het Depot.

Our buildings
The Depot is housed at three locations: the main building and De Peppel building on Arboretumlaan, and Villa Hinkeloord on Generaal Foulkesweg. The Depot started in 2004 in Villa Hinkeloord. From 2010, the main building and De Peppel were added.