MICHAEL DOUGLAS, elegantly dressed in a dark blue suit, white spread-collar shirt, violet tie and a white pocket square, and looking fit despite his recent bout with throat cancer, was standing in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday night, one of the hundreds of people who had shown up for the museum’s annual Party in the Garden.

Did he remember the first time he visited MoMA?

“Hmm, let me think,” he said. “Gee, I think it must have been at the opening.”

An awkward silence ensued while his questioner tried to run off a quick calculation in his head: Was Michael Douglas even born in 1929? How old is he actually? And he’s looking great for his age!

“That must have been it,” he continued. “Must have been ’84 or ’85, right?”

Oh, right. The 1984 renovation by Cesar Pelli, which doubled the museum’s space. Well, he’s still looking good for his age.

On to dinner.

As guests dined on truffled asparagus and filet mignon, Marie-Josée Kravis, one of the evening’s hosts (along with Jerry Speyer), gave a mercifully short speech in tribute to the evening’s honorees: Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Mimi Haas, Jill Kraus and Sharon Percy Rockefeller.

“Strong women are nothing new to MoMA,” Ms. Kravis said, referring to its founding by some of the leading socialites of the early 20th century.

Though the speeches were short, the dinner was not, dragging on well past the scheduled hour, as outside in the garden, more than a thousand people began to gather in anticipation of the night’s big attraction: a live performance by Kanye West. (Tickets for the dinner started at $1,500 a person; for the after-party, $150. The sold-out event raised $4 million for the museum.)