 He was a member of the National Academy and Correspondent Member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de l'Institut de France.In 1995 he was the recipient of the Jimmy Ernst Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Arts and Letters.McGarrell held residencies, grants, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the study centers of the Bogliasco Foundation outside Genoa and the Rockefeller Foundation at Bellagio in Italy.