This paper addresses the problem of face recognition using a graphical representation to identify structure that is common to pairs of images. Matching graphs are constructed where nodes correspond to local brightness gradient directions and edges are dependent on the relative orientation of the nodes. Similarity is determined from the size of maximal matching cliques in pattern pairs. The method uses a single reference face image to obtain recognition without a training stage. Results on samples from MegaFace obtain a 100% correct recognition result.