This paper presents a novel color face recognition approach based on 2DPCA. A matrix-representation model, which encodes the color information directly, is proposed to describe the color face image. The matrix-representation model defines the pixel in color face image as the basic unit, the color information of the pixel as the basic component, and then represents the color face image efficiently in the format of matrix. Based on the representation model, color-Eigenfaces are computed for feature extraction using 2DPCA. Nearest neighborhood classification approach is adopted to identify the color face samples. Experimental results on CVL and CMU PIE color face database show the good performance of the proposed color face recognition approach.