Jose Ygnacio Bermudez

Mountains and Rainbows

Notice: Due to renovations at Scottsdale Civic Center, Mountains and Rainbows has moved to a new permanent location at DC Ranch Park in north Scottsdale. Learn more.

Mountains and Rainbows was Jose Bermudez’s first significant commission in Arizona, purchased by the Scottsdale Fine Arts Commission in 1975 to highlight the newly created Scottsdale Civic Center Park. It was initially sited within a pond-like setting, with arcing water sprays streaming from one side of the ascending triangular sculpture, creating a rainbow effect when illuminated by the sun. An adjoining fountain with 24 floating steel discs surrounded the 22-foot-tall sculpture.

Years of harsh treatment due to the effects of the water on the surface, coupled with a period of vandalism in which the floating discs were stolen, caused the artwork’s character to diminish. When the city renovated Civic Center in the 1990s, the sculpture was restored and restructured to remove the debilitating water elements, and it was relocated to the Civic Center’s northwest corner.

Scottsdale Civic Center’s 2021–23 renovation project resulted in the sculpture’s relocation to DC Ranch Park at 91st Street and Trailside View, on the east side of the retention pond, with the McDowell mountains behind.