Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes at the Frick It may not be unusual for the Frick Collection to present an exhibition of bronze sculptures; over the past decade, there have been five such shows. But pairing them with contemporary paintings by modern masters like Cy Twombly and Ed Ruscha is a startling departure for the institution, best known for art from the Renaissance to the late 19th century and fine furniture. When "Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes From the Hill Collection" opens there on Jan. 28, visitors will see juxtapositions they may never have expected. A two-foot tall sculpture by the Florentine Baroque master Giuseppe Piamontini, for example, displayed in front of a 1988 canvas by Mr. Ruscha. But it is just this kind of presentation that is the very essence of what the New York collectors Janine and J. Tomilson Hill have spent some 20 years exploring. "The dialogue is what it's all about," said Mr. Hill, who is vice chairman of the Blackstone Group and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Since the mid-1990s, he and his wife have been buying contemporary art, concentrating primarily on collecting eight postwar artists in depth: Warhol, Lichtenstein, Bacon, de Kooning, Twombly, Lucio Fontana, Brice Marden and Mr. Ruscha. At the same time, the Hills have been immersing themselves in the world of Renaissance sculpture, putting together a group of bronzes from the 16th through the 19th century by Giambologna and Adriaen de Vries, Andrea Riccio, Antonio Susini and Ferdinando Tacca. The Frick exhibition will be the first time that the Hills" bronzes are shown as a collection, and the works will be seen alongside a selection of the couple's contemporary and old master paintings. There will also be one contemporary sculpture in the show, a crucifix from the early 1950s by Mr. Fontana. "Within the area of bronzes, each collector expresses his or her own tastes and interests," said Denise Allen, the Frick curator who has organized the show. They also give us insight into the personality of the collectors and how they see sculpture in the context of the larger art world. Ian Wardropper, the Frick's director, pointed out that the Hills" collecting is not unlike that of Henry Clay Frick, the museum's founder, who also started out buying the contemporary artists of his day. Mr. Hill's references, however, are a bit more 20th century. "I remember listening to Andy talk about Piero della Francesca," he said, referring to Warhol. His knowledge of old masters was extensive. He noted that some of today's artists, including Christopher Wool, also embrace the old masters, adding, "That's what makes it all really fun." Although neither of the Hills are trustees of the Frick, they have promised it a bronze. But when asked which one, everyone's lips were sealed. Olive oil caviar, pine cone mousse, asparagus beer and Parmesan snow are just a few concoctions created over 27 years by Ferran Adrià, the celebrated Spanish chef who ran El Bulli, that tiny restaurant on the Catalan coast, near Rosas, Spain, frequented by foodies from all over the world. It closed in 2011. Fusing cooking with science - liquid nitrogen and alginates are common ingredients for Mr. Adrià - each of his thousands of dishes resembled edible still lifes, the sort of visual delights that would have been the envy of Surrealist masters like Magritte or Dalí. "Since 1987, Ferran and his brother, Albert, used drawing as their lingua franca," said Brett Littman, executive director of the Drawing Center in SoHo. They were also religious archivists. Every scrap of paper that ever passed through anyone's hand is in that archive. Such fastidiousness has been a bonanza for Mr. Littman, who spent about two years and countless trips to Mr. Adrià"s atelier and archive in Barcelona organizing a show called "Ferran Adrià: Notes on Creativity," which runs Jan. 25 through Feb. 28.