RELATED: Photos from Studio in a School Gala

A one-night-only exhibit at Gagosian Gallery’s Chelsea outpost drew top collectors (Ronald Lauder, Aby Rosen, Richard Menschel to name a powerful few), dealers (Anne Freedman of Knoedler & Co., Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, Angela Westwater), and artists (Frank Stella, Ellen Phelan, Ellsworth Kelly, Malcolm Morley, Brice Marden). But none of the artists on display were present. It was past their bedtime.

The artists were New York City schoolchildren, and they created the work in the cornerstone program of Studio In a School, a nonprofit founded nearly 31 years ago by arts patron Agnes Gund. The organization, run for nearly 28 years by Thomas Cahill, places more than 100 working artists to teach at 150 schools, with an annual budget of $6 million. Studio also displays children’s work on an ongoing basis at its gallery at 1 E. 53rd St.

One of the most striking works hanging at Gagosian was a portrait of a girl by Fiona Kwai, a first-grader at P.S. 102 in Elmhurst, Queens. Against a bright red background with blue dots, the girl with big black eyes and a smiling red mouth looks both cute and full of ideas.

With the art as inspiration, the childless gathering — Studio in a School’s 30th anniversary gala — was nonetheless childlike in spirit. The 430 adult guests found paint sets, M&Ms, and crayons at their tables, and for dinner they were served macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers, salad, and ice cream sundaes.

Some professional art — drawings by William Wegman of Dorothy Lichtenstein’s dogs — had a brief display at the podium. Ms. Gund presented the drawings to Ms. Lichtenstein, the artist Roy Lichtenstein’s widow, as part of her gift as honoree (which also included $50,000 in Studio programs to her alma mater, Midwood High School in Brooklyn). The drawings are placeholders for photographs Mr. Wegman has been commissioned to take of the dogs.

The event, under the leadership of chairmen Jeff Koons, Ms. Rohatyn, and Samantha Boardman Rosen, with décor by Bronson Van Wyck and catering by Hudson Yards, raised $1,450,000 for Studio. Some of those funds will support new initiatives, such as giving talented students scholarships to attend art school and developing an assessment program to measure the program’s impact.

Back in school this week, teaching artist Ascha Drake, a painter, said she is working with fifth graders on symbolic self-portraits, while her younger students are drawing insects and bugs. Teaching artist James Reynolds, a draftsman, is helping his third graders creating neighborhood map collages.

“They are my best teacher,” Mr. Reynolds said.

agordon@nysun.com