Peregrine Pollen, who brought a sense of showmanship to the sedate New York auction scene of the 1960s and early ’70s while helping to implement a startling consolidation of two auction-house giants, died on Feb. 18. He was 89.

The Times of London reported that he died after being struck by a truck. It did not say where the accident occurred.

In 1960 Mr. Pollen was put in charge of the New York operation of the British auction house Sotheby’s as it began to take more interest in art and other collections held by Americans. He scored several coups for the house, striking agreements to auction important American-owned works in England, including, in June 1964, Vasily Kandinsky paintings offered by the Guggenheim Foundation and sold for $1.5 million.

Such successes were particularly nettlesome for the Parke-Bernet Galleries, the dominant New York auction house at the time; it and Sotheby’s were bitter rivals. But the friction ended in July 1964, when Sotheby’s acquired a controlling interest in Parke-Bernet and made Mr. Pollen its president. That’s when the fun began.