In connection with our current research work on the founding history of the institute during the Third Reich, its ancestors at the Technical University and the Alte Pinakothek as well as the difficult years after World War II, a publication (in German) about the time span between 1945 and 1956 has been published recently.

In 1946, the former Reichsinstitut, which had been managed under the trusteeship of the state of Bavaria since 1945, was assigned to the Bavarian State Painting Collections (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen) in Munich. This also ended the activities in material testing mainly for the American Military Government. Its department for painting techniques was closed in 1962. Conservation, restoration and art technology became the topics of the future.

In 1964, Dr. Christian Wolters (1912-1998) became director of the Doerner Institut, which consisted of a laboratory and a conservation workshop at that time. Wolters was extraordinarily successful in reorientating the Institut in the direction of art technology, and he helped it to gain worldwide recognition.