The invention belongs to the technical field of image processing and pattern recognition, and discloses a face identification method based on gradient sparse representation. In recent years, owing to excellent recognition effect and wide application prospect, the face identification algorithm based on sparse representation gains more and more attention. However, the face identification algorithm based on sparse representation requires a complete training set, which is hardly satisfied in practical application; and the face identification algorithm based on sparse representation needs to solve the 1<1> minimization problem, which consumes plenty of time. In consideration of insensitivity of image gradient to uniform illuminance, the method introduces image gradient under the framework of sparse representation, and meanwhile adopts X-direction gradient, Y-direction gradient and image pixel value of a gray level image to identify a face image. Therefore, the method relaxes the requirement on the completeness of the training sample set to a great extent, and a better identification effect can be obtained only by selecting a few training samples from each type. Besides, the method solves the sparse representation factor of a testing face image on a training face image set by minimization of the 1<2> norm, so the method is fast and has higher application value.