From human cognition, a face recognition method with local matching based on statistical learning is proposed. The image is divided into several subimages and each subimage is considered as a weak classifier. The Adaboost learning algorithm is used to train the weak classifiers and construct a strong classifier. As a result, all subimages are effectively combined together to explore the best discriminating power and improve the classification accuracy. Compared with the holistic matching methods, the local matching method is robust to variations in illumination, expression, and pose, etc. The experimental results show that the proposed method can improve the face recognition accuracy and is robust to variations in illumination and expression.