Rumors that art collector and patron of progressive causes Agnes Gund sold her prized 1962 Roy Lichtenstein 'Masterpiece' are true. Gund sold the painting for $165 million, including fee, to create a fund that supports criminal justice reform, including reducing mass incarceration in America.

The new Art for Justice Fund — to be announced Monday at the Museum of Modern Art, where Ms. Gund is president emerita — will start with $100 million of the proceeds from the Lichtenstein (which was sold to the collector Steven A. Cohen through Acquavella Gallery).

Ms. Gund, together with the Ford Foundation as administrator of the fund, hopes that other collectors will also support the Art for Justice Fund, with a collective goal of raising another $100 million over the next five years.

NEW YORK, NY - APRIL 26: President of the Ford Foundation Darren Walker attends 2016 Time 100 Gala, Time's Most Influential People In The World at Jazz At Lincoln Center at the Times Warner Center on April 26, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images for Time)

Rarely, writes the New York Times, do charitable undertakings start at $100 million. The gesture is meant to be dramatic as a challenge to fellow collectors to use their artworks in support of social cases, as art prices rise and the incentive is NOT to sell them.

“The larger idea is to raise awareness among a community of art collectors that they can use their influence and their collections to advance social justice,” said Darren Walker, the Ford Foundation’s president. “Art has meaning on a wall, but it also has meaning when it is monetized.”

Gund has already received commitments of donations from Laurie M. Tisch, a chairwoman of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Kenneth I. Chenault, chief executive of American Express, and his wife, Kathryn; the philanthropist Jo Carole Lauder; the financier Daniel S. Loeb; and Brooke Neidich, a Whitney trustee.

“There’s long been this criticism that people who have the means to acquire fine art are allowed to surround themselves with beautiful things while they are unwilling to look at the ugly realities that sometimes shape a community or a culture or a country,” said Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. “Using this art to actually respond to over-incarceration or racial inequality or social injustice is a powerful idea.”

The impetus for the fund was personal. Six of Ms. Gund’s 12 grandchildren are African-American, and she has worried about their future as they’ve matured, particularly in light of shootings of black teenagers like Trayvon Martin in Florida.

“I have always had an extreme sensitivity to inequality,” Ms. Gund said.

She added that she was also deeply affected by Michelle Alexander’s 2010 book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," and Ava DuVernay's 2016 documentary '13th', about African-Americans in the prison system.

Because criminal justice “has never been very popular in philanthropy,” Mr. Stevenson said, “I’m hoping the fund will help energize some long overdue reform efforts.

“Right now in the United States, we have the highest rate of incarceration,” he continued. “The Bureau of Justice is projecting that one in three black male babies is expected to go to jail or prison. We have incredibly high levels of poverty. There’s despair in many communities.”

Mr. Stevenson will take part in an evening event at MoMA on Monday to announce the fund that will also feature Piper Kerman, author of “Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison,” and Glenn E. Martin, president and founder of JustLeadershipUSA, which aims to reduce the prison population, in conversation with The New York Times Op-Ed columnist Charles Blow.

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