During Brindle's 20-year tenure as curator of art, he inaugurated the International Exhibition of Botanical Art and Illustration, organizing the first four Internationals. James J. White joined the Institute in 1978 as the assistant curator of art, becoming the curator in 1981. During his 20-plus years at the Institute, White has refined the standard of excellence set by Brindle, overseeing six Internationals, dozens of exhibitions and numerous catalogues. White also has worked to catalogue the art collection in machine-readable form. The Database Begun in 1979, the database was compiled by James J. White with the assistance of Elizabeth R. Smith and published as the Catalogue of the Botanical Art Collection at the Hunt Institute in nine parts from 1985 to 1998.
New information is incorporated into the database as it becomes available.
The data fields include Name, Nationality, Dates, Taxon, Title, Description, Printmaker, Signature, Place of Execution, Date of Execution, Medium, Support, Image Size, Dimensions, Edition, Publication, Accession Number and Notes. Name Artist's names are given surname first. The nationalities given are not necessarily those of legal citizenship, and dual nationalities are listed for some artists associated significantly with more than one country. Imputed titles and any supplementary information are given in brackets. Printmaker Printmakers' names are given surname first.